JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Changes to travelers' routines for air travel are now underway at the Jacksonville International Airport as the Airport Authority upgrades its baggage screening system.
The changes start Tuesday, right after the holiday weekend, and will take place six months at a time, first on the north end, and then the south end of the airport.
The new technology is supposed to make things smoother and safer, keeping prohibited items that once may have slipped past security from getting onto a plane.
"What you see on the table today is just a smattering of what's been brought to checkpoint here at JIA very recently," TSA public affairs manager, Sari Koshetz, said.
Koshetz displayed examples of confiscated items when people traveled through Jacksonville's airport, saying that officers collected 1,300 pounds of prohibited items at airport checkpoints since Jan. 1.
Those examples included 14 guns, 12 of them loaded, and the number of prohibited items confiscated explodes when considering items found in checked baggage.
"Year to date here in Jax, our officers have stopped, between carry-on and checked bags, 55,000 pounds of hazardous materials. So please, please, please, look at what's in your bag, before you head to the airport," Koshetz said.
As a way to make sure passengers don't get caught with something they may have forgotten, Koshetz said it's simply a matter of completely unpacking a bag and checking, before packing it again for air travel.
"Some bags have linings, zippers, say they were on a road trip, or were on a hunting trip, then they forget to open up the zipper, the linings, make sure nothing is in that bag," Koshetz said. "Lots of ammunition brought to the checkpoint here. So lots of people remember to take a gun out, but forget to take the ammunition out. Not even one bullet is permitted in your carry-on bag."
Spokesman Michael Stewart showed us an upgraded machine for baggage screening explaining that for the next six months, on the north end of the terminal, you'll check in, get a bag-tag, and get your luggage to a station at the TSA checkpoint.
After that it's back to business as usual, but the change will make things much smoother for bag traffic.
"The new machines (are) much more efficient. The current machines, when your bag passes through the machine, in the screening process, the bag will stop to get its picture taken. The new machines, the bag passes through without stopping. They are twice as fast in terms of their capability of screening bags," Stewart said.
The Airport Authority said the new system is literally twice as fast. The old machines can handle 450 bags per hour, but new machines will be able to handle 900 per hour.
Those new machines are four CTX9 800 Hold Baggage Screening System machines that will cost $19 million, of which TSA will cover 90 percent.