Summer vacation travelers will find the nation`s airports a little easier to deal with because several security restrictions imposed during the Persian Gulf war are scheduled to be lifted by Memorial Day.
But other security measures are destined to become a permanent part of the airport landscape in Chicago and around the country, federal and city officials said Tuesday.
Families and friends will be able to greet arriving passengers and say farewell at airline gates, a practice that was stopped to reduce the chances that terrorists could slip past metal detectors.
Airports also are free to ease parking restrictions close to airport terminals, Transportation Secretary Samuel Skinner said.
Chicago authorities, however, said the city will continue its crackdown on unattended vehicles parked outside the terminals at O`Hare International and Midway Airports.
Security will still be tighter than it was before the war broke out Jan. 17, and ”extraordinary” steps will remain in effect for international travel, Skinner told reporters.
The Federal Aviation Administration ordered the highest level of security when the war began, ending curbside check-in of baggage, allowing only ticketed passengers past security screening to the gates and preventing unattended cars from parking closer than 100 feet to terminals.
The tensions in the Middle East resulted in more than 100 terrorist actions at airports around the world, said FAA Administrator James Busey.
”Internationally there was very clearly a threat to aviation security,” he said.
But U.S. airports were kept ”basically risk-free” during the military buildup and the war, Skinner said, largely because intelligence and security overseas kept terrorists out of the country.
”That eliminated a good portion of the method of executing some of these threats,” he said.
Shortly after the war, some steps, such as the ban on curbside luggage check-in, were eased if performed under close supervision.
Skinner said that the airports can now reduce the security alert to a lower level.
”We think the threat today is less than it was when war broke out,” he said.
Busey said airports will be notified in the next few days to relax security and that the new procedures will be in place by this weekend at many facilities and by the Memorial Day weekend, May 25-27, at the latest.
In Chicago, people will be able to go through security stations to concourses and boarding areas without holding a ticket, said Lisa Howard, spokeswoman for the Chicago Department of Aviation.
Vendors at O`Hare have complained that the restrictions on pedestrian traffic in the terminals substantally cut into their revenues.
The additional plainclothes police patrols added during the war will continue, Howard said, as will the rule restricting the airport terminals to ticketed passengers between midnight and 5 a.m.
Security steps recommended by a presidential commission a year ago in the aftermath of the 1988 bombing of Pan American Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, are being implemented, Skinner said.
The steps include the placement of federal security managers at 18 major U.S. airports by the end of summer, including O`Hare and Midway, and basing U.S. security liaisons at overseas airports.
