Leaving Las Vegas is going to look a bit different starting Monday.
The Transportation Security Administration has selected Sin City’s airport as the first in the country to utilize a self-service security screening system. Passengers (who are already part of the TSA’s PreCheck program) will be able to start using it Monday.
Despite the self-screening concept, TSA agents will remain a part of the process, though travelers will have fewer interactions with them. You’ll still have to clear an ID check with the TSA, and if you’re suspected of having a banned item, they’ll handle the pat-downs. But passengers will scan their own bags and themselves.
The new system will take over two lanes at Harry Reid International Airport—and you’ll only be able to use it between 5:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. initially. The TSA might send some non-PreCheck passengers to the new screeners, but children under 12 will not be allowed to use them.
That could speed the lines up, but the point of the new screening service is to make the checkpoint a more pleasant experience, Homeland Security officials say. That will mean a few other changes.
Passengers who use the self-screening stations, for instance, will put all of their items in a single bin, rather than, say, jackets in one tray and electronics in another. If the system sees something that raises a flag, it will divert the bag to a TSA officer. (If the system suspects a weapon, it diverts the bag to a locked box, where the passenger cannot retrieve it.) Cleared bags go right back to passengers, as they do on regular screening systems. An on-screen avatar, meanwhile, will let you know how to stand and correct you if you’re in the wrong position before it scans you for suspicious objects on your person.
The test phase of the new technology is not set in stone. It could be rolled out on a wider scale within a few months or it could be more than a year.
