If the road to hell is paved with good intentions, it apparently leads through the TSA security lanes at U.S. airports. It turns out that in practice the new scanners that were (in theory) going to speed up the process are slowing it down.
The theory was that while the new 3D scanning machines were slower than the old X-ray devices, they were more accurate, would not require liquids and laptops be removed from bags and would flag fewer items for manual inspection.
TSA has now admitted that a software glitch in its pricy new Analogic machines has resulted in more, not fewer, items being flagged for inspectors to check, so that airport lines with the new machines are moving slower than lines that still have the older devices.
And, to add insult to injury, most travelers will still have to pull liquids and laptops from their bags because TSA says that rules must be consistent, and the liquids rule won’t be changed until the new machines, hopefully with their software updated, are everywhere—and that won’t be until around 2030.
