Federal officials Wednesday promised to meet an impending deadline to screen all checked airline baggage for explosives. But the plan may still have some holes.

        Bag matching, a program that matches luggage with passengers and is a primary piece of the plan to meet the requirement, will be used only only when passengers start their journeys, not when they switch planes.

        That has raised concern that bags transferred at airline hubs such as the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport could be a security risk — a concern based on history.

        “What they are putting in place is totally inadequate and these deadlines have actually made it worse, because it put things into place that one can easily get around,” said Juval Aviv, a New York-based security specialist who was the lead investigator for Pan Am in the 1988 explosion of one of that airline's planes over Lockerbie, Scotland.

        That catastrophe, which killed 270, was caused by a bomb inside a bag that began a trip in Frankfurt, Germany, and was transferred to a plane in London.

        Yet Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta said that beginning Friday, the requirements of the law — passed after the Sept. 11 attacks — will be met.

        Federal and airline officials would not comment specifically on the plan to meet the deadline, but privately, several aviation and airline officials confirmed that bag matching will be required on originating flights only.

        In addition to bag matching, or not loading a bag on a plane if its owner is not onboard, airlines and airports can use three other methods to search bags for bombs.

        Locally, however, bag matching will probably be the primary tool for meeting the law's requirement, since the airport:

        • Does not have an explosive detection system (EDS).

        • Has only three dogs on its canine unit.

        • Hand searches are intrusive and cause delays.

        More than 70 percent of the 22.5 million passengers who use the local airport annually are transfers — it's the second-largest hub for Delta Air Lines and the primary hub for Delta's Erlanger-based regional carrier Comair.

        The requirement for origination bag matching only appears to be a victory of sorts for the airlines, which had fought the program for domestic flights prior to the Sept. 11 attacks.

        A requirement to match bags to transferring passengers could have disrupted traffic even more.

        One travelers' advocate said he was willing to accept the risk that a bomb might make it through a transfer, allowing someone to fly the first leg and skip the second trip and have a device go off.

        “As long as this is a short-term solution, this raises the bar pretty high,” said Kevin Mitchell, chairman of the Business Travel Coalition. “But they need to replace it with machines,” as the law calls for by the end of the year.

        Delta has already put its explosive screening practices into place, company officials said Wednesday. The officials would not give details, saying only that they were complying with federal regulations.

        The airline did say that it would no longer accept baggage at either the curb or at a ticket counter less than 30 minutes before takeoff.

        And effective Friday, the airline will require passengers who check baggage to declare at check-in whether they will be trying to fly stand-by for a flight other than the one for which they are scheduled.

        Delta spokeswoman Kristi Tucker said the carrier expects “no major disruptions” Friday, but still advised passengers to arrive at the airport at least two hours before takeoff.

        Comair also has put its plan in place, and it includes the continuation of the airline's popular “pink tag” program, which allows passengers to carry their bags to the gate, and have them loaded onto the plane at the last minute instead of checking it.

        Some travelers appeared more concerned about the potential service disruption than in potential security gaps.

        “If it's screened once, that should be enough,” said Greg Holleran, 26, of Milford, who was headed to San Diego on Delta. “It's going to get to the point where you're going to have to be there five hours (early). You might as well drive.”

       Enquirer contributor Ray Schaefer assisted in this report.
       

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