The Transportation Safety Administration is on the verge of a big-time rollout of CT scanners, which have the potential to really speed up airport carry-on bag handling,
The Federal agency has $71 million for 145 of the pricey machines in the budget currently before Congress, and will meantime roll out its test program at another major airport later this month when the ‘computed tomography’ scanners go online at American Airlines Terminal 8 at JFK. They’ve already been in testing at Phoenix Terminal A and Boston Terminal E.
CT machines will TSA to get a much faster and accurate 3-D view of what’s inside luggage, meaning that fewer bags will need to be opened and checked, and fewer things will need to be taken out for separate scanning. It’s the same type of scan that’s been used for years for checked bags, but until now the machines have been too big to install at passenger scanning lanes.
It’s about time!