The National Academies Press

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Pages 37-53

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From page 37... ... Given the pilot projects in place at four U.S. airports to reduce baggage recheck for select international-to-international connections, CBP is open to discussing opportunities to provide a facilitated process for passengers. Read the entire page →
From page 38... ... Table 2 identifies the procedures and indicates when they would occur. Alternative Procedure 1: Exemption of Checked Baggage from FIS Since 2007, CBP has been piloting the concept of reduced baggage recheck at select airports. Read the entire page →
From page 39... ... Overall, the key implementation issue is whether airport facilities have sufficient space to deal with ramp-level transfers for connecting bags, particularly those airports with a 50 to 75 percent connection volume during peak periods. Alternative Procedure 2: Alternative Procedure 1 + New Airline/ Airport Processes on Arrival To secure support for various facilitation processes, some airports with CBP Preclearance have introduced new processes to provide CBP with more information to assist in risk management. Read the entire page →
From page 40... ... However, the costs borne by airports and airlines to provide additional information to CBP represent a potential obstacle to this alternative procedure. While cost may not be an issue at some facilities, the study team notes that the high variability of "risk" as defined by CBP, and discretion for a Port Director to implement local procedures, can impact the feasibility of this alternative. Read the entire page →
From page 41... ... There needs to be a careful balance to ensure that the benefits of baggage recheck elimination or reduction outweighs staffing allocation costs to ensure smooth Primary Processing at hub airports. Alternative Procedure 4: Enhanced Pre-departure Information A major trend in border management in recent years is to "push the border out" through analysis of information before flight arrival. Read the entire page →
From page 42... ... Nevertheless, this alternative procedure could prompt creative solutions that could serve as a future platform for the evolution of pre-departure intelligence and information processing. Alternative Procedure 5: Information Sharing with TSA Programs TSA and CBP are currently in an era of renewed data sharing. Read the entire page →
From page 43... ... At the time this study was conducted, Global Entry had no interaction with airlines overseas, nor does it deal with Global Entry members' checked bags. In concept, reducing the need for baggage recheck for all Global Entry members is sound, as these individuals have already been recognized as "low risk" and thus worthy of a facilitated process. Read the entire page →
From page 44... ... Issues and Considerations With the growth of fees for checked bags as well as fees for cabin carry-on items, there is some potential for third party door-to-door shippers to grow in prominence over the coming years. While this alternative procedure can help to remove the need for baggage recheck for one passenger, it does little to eliminate an airport baggage recheck outright. Read the entire page →
From page 45... ... Of critical concern to the airlines are the incremental costs associated directly with the alternative process to produce a system cost reduction or neutral impact. For example, a shift of resources from the baggage recheck area to the ground handling team, or the process/costs, could be absorbed within existing ground handling and customer staff processes. Read the entire page →
From page 46... ... in order to quantitatively test the operational impact under real airport conditions and enable a comparison of current bag program processes versus potential alternative processes in order to estimate the order-of-magnitude time savings for alternative steps. The objectives of the carry-on process time testing, conducted in conjunction with the airline RFID baggage study, were as follows: • Characterization of baggage reclaim process timing (i.e., does the passenger wait for bags at the carousel or vice versa? Read the entire page →
From page 47... ... Key Results For passenger timing from flight arrival to exit from the FIS area, a significant reduction in time occurred as a result of baggage recheck elimination. Although bags were often ready to be picked up by passengers at the baggage claim carousel, connecting passengers needed additional time to locate baggage carts, find/identify their bags, and exit the FIS area. Read the entire page →
From page 48... ... Nevertheless, the ability to view the interior contents of checked bags would provide more information than CBP currently has within its FIS. Therefore, the test objective was to determine whether images obtained during the screening of transfer baggage by Transportation Security Officers are useful to address the mission-critical needs of other law enforcement and regulatory agencies, such as CBP. Read the entire page →
From page 49... ... Methodology A select number of international-to-domestic flights was studied on a Monday in May 2011 at SEA for flights arriving at the South Satellite terminal. Actual live data and observations were made, working with operational baggage handling staff. Read the entire page →
From page 50... ... on the same trip from the South Satellite to the Main Terminal. – There is a possibility that bags might be transported to the Main Terminal before passengers are processed through CBP Primary or Egress during times of severe congestion and long wait times in the FIS area. Read the entire page →
From page 51... ... Pricing, competitor response, and other factors remained static for the purpose of this test in order to evaluate the expansion of baggage recheck elimination to international-to-domestic flows. Key Results The testing highlights a reduction of connection times of 20 to 30 minutes due to the reduction of the need for passengers to wait for baggage redelivery. Read the entire page →
From page 52... ... • Where current minimum connection times are high, a greater reduction in MCT is possible and would result in relatively larger gains for air carriers, whereas airports with low minimum connection times would only allow for minor reductions in MCT and thus smaller benefits to airlines. Test 5: Simulation Modeling Discrete event simulation models are useful for evaluating scenarios in which the results are driven by time-dependent interactions of events. Read the entire page →
From page 53... ... The key results of Test 5 are as follows: • International-to-international baggage transfer generates moderate benefits of improving capacity for the entire system, as checked bags that would normally be present in the reclaim carousel in FIS are instead directed to the onward connecting flight. • International-to-domestic baggage recheck elimination would provide comparable benefits with neither bags nor passengers going to baggage claim. Read the entire page →

From page 37...

... Given the pilot projects in place at four U.S. airports to reduce baggage recheck for select international-to-international connections, CBP is open to discussing opportunities to provide a facilitated process for passengers.