How Mobile Technology Will Streamline Airport Check-In

Fox Business: The future looks bright for travelers with smartphones wanting a smoother travel experience at the airport. Airlines recognize that one of the major pain points for travelers is the check-in process, which often involves a long wait time. They’re making strides to ameliorate the inefficient and annoying process using mobile technology.

According to SITA’s 2011 Airline IT Trends survey of the top 200 passenger carriers, over 90% are planning to invest in passenger mobile services this year, with the focus on check-in, flight status notifications, and electronic boarding passes.

Here’s a look at the current state of mobile check-in technology - and why it’s about to get even better.

Current: Emailed Mobile Barcodes
Travelers with smartphones are quickly adopting mobile boarding pass technology - airlines surveyed by SITA say that 15% of all air travelers will use a mobile phone to check-in at the airport and obtain an electronic mobile boarding pass by 2014. Self-service check-in at kiosks already offers some convenience, but using a mobile device to do so without the burden of printing and keeping track of a paper boarding pass with make the process even faster and easier. The time-saving benefit for travelers is indisputable - Quantas says frequent flyers using its Next Generation Check-In Program (which incorporates a mobile boarding pass) can complete the process in 5 seconds. Great news - but what happens at the check-in scanner when the traveler’s mobile device isn’t getting a great wireless signal, and retrieving the barcode pass from email is impossible? Enter Near Field Communication...

Future: e-Travel Documents via Near Field Communication (NFC)
Near Field Communication technology enables secure data sharing between a traveler’s mobile device and a reader at the airport. That means not only boarding passes but all travel documents - e-Passports, e-Visas, baggage receipts, itineraries, immigration forms and more - can be stored electronically and retrieved without an Internet connection. SAS Scandinavian Airlines is an early adopter of this technology, allowing their frequent flyers to use an NFC-based Smart Pass sticker at check-in, security, lounges, and gates throughout the airport. Newer smartphones already on the market have an embedded NFC chip that will send encrypted data, ensuring the privacy of sensitive traveler information.

As new passenger-centric technology like NFC is introduced and adopted, the airport experience will evolve from streamlined to seamless - all travelers will need to remember is a smartphone.

New Zealand TV Star Apologizes for Airport Skit



WANNA-BEn's Ben Boyce

 3News: It was all in the name of comedy, but today no one was laughing.

WANNA-BEn star Ben Boyce admits that he crossed the line when he suggested radio DJ Bryce Casey play a pilot and attempt to enter a restricted area in Auckland Airport’s domestic terminal.

“He doesn’t look like a pilot, he’s unshaven, he’s got tattoos, we didn’t have any ID, he just went up and said ‘I’m flying the next plane out of here’ and they pick holes through the story because he had no ID and he had no idea what gate or what flight he was on,” says Boyce.

“I think when it comes down to it, I can only point the blame at me really, I should have listened to my teachers all the way through school,” he says.

Also in on the gag was TV producer Andrew Robinson. The three appeared in Manukau District Court today charged with breaching the Civil Aviation Act. They're appearing next month but until then are not allowed to go near the airport.

“What started as something we thought was a mildly amusing skit for the show escalated into a police hunt which was never the intention, and when we heard about it, we were pretty quick to call them up and tell them it was us,” he says.

The penalty if found guilty is 12 months in prison or a $10,000 fine.

“It's irresponsible for a bunch of clowns who should know better. Quite frankly we're in the middle of hosting a Rugby World Cup and if these are people playing games, they need to grow up,” says Prime Minister John Key.

Grow up is exactly what Boyce plans to do. He says he'll be more cautious of the next skit he plans. “We're sorry that we caused alarm and we hope that people don’t get full cavity searched when they travel all thanks to us,” he says.

Mediaworks, which runs the WANNA-BEn series says despite the charges it will run the show as planned this week. But it's still unknown whether the skit in question will make it on television.

TSA Fires 28 Honolulu Screeners, Suspends 15

ABC News: Dozens of employees at Honolulu's airport have been fired or suspended after an investigation found workers did not screen checked bags for explosives, said the Transportation Security Administration.

The firings and suspensions amounted to the single largest personnel action for misconduct in the federal agency's history. The agency said in a statement that 28 workers were "removed," 15 suspended, and three resigned or retired. The cases of two other employees were still being decided.

TSA began an investigation at the end of last year after two Honolulu employees told officials that thousands of bags weren't checked properly or screened for traces of explosives.

The probe, which included interviews with more than 100 employees, determined that some checked bags during one shift at the airport were not properly screened.

The National Treasury Employees Union, which represents TSA workers, has said the employees faced pressure to make sure flights departed on time.

The workers can appeal the decision, the agency said. A TSA spokesman declined to comment because it involved personnel issues.

Futuristic Pods Wisk Travelers at London Heathrow

Reuters: Laser-guided travel pods that work without drivers or timetables were officially unveiled at London's Heathrow airport on Friday.

The system, which featured in an exhibition on the future of transport at London's Science Museum in 2009, has become a reality, reducing the time it takes business passengers to move from terminal to car park by 60 percent.

Traveling at speeds up to 40 km/hour (25 mph), after an average wait of just 34 seconds, the system looks like something straight from a science fiction film.

The pods, which run along tracks and allow passengers to select their destinations, use laser sensors to ferry business passengers and their luggage along a 3.8 km route.

According to ULTra, the company behind the technology, the 30 million pound ($47 million) development could transport up to 500,000 passengers each year and replace 50,000 shuttle bus journeys.

The British invention, which has been on trial at Heathrow since April, is the culmination of over 60 years of development. First dreamed up in the 1950s, it has now become a working reality under ULTra PRT president and former NASA engineer, Martin Lowson who championed the idea while lecturing at Bristol University in the 1990s.

The company, now part owned by Ferrovial's British airports division BAA, is confident that the technology will prove popular. India recently announced it will pilot the system around Delhi and Amritsar and feasibility studies are currently in progress in Raleigh, North Carolina in the United States. ($1 = 0.633 British Pounds)

TSA to Announce New Policy for Children Under 12

CBS/AP: Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano says the government will be rolling out a different airport pat-down policy for children under 12 in the coming months, and these children will no longer have to take off their shoes to be screened.

Napolitano says the traveling public can expect to see some of these changes in the coming months.

Some travelers and privacy advocates have complained that children, who don't appear to pose terror threats, are subject to intimate pat-downs that involve Transportation Security Administration screeners touching private areas.

Children under 12 will also be spared the hassle of taking off their shoes as they go through check point security, Napolitano said.

Napolitano was speaking at a Senate hearing Tuesday on the terror threat to the United States.

Last week, the Homeland Security Secretary told POLITICO that the shoe-removal rule may be ending for people in general, although she gave no timetable of when the policy will change.

"We are moving towards an intelligence and risk-based approach to how we screen," Napolitano told POLITCO's Mike Allen at the time. "I think one of the first things you will see over time is the ability to keep your shoes on. One of the last things you will [see] is the reduction or limitation on liquids."

Previous pat-downs of kids were met with criticism. Earlier this year, CBS News reported the case of a 6-year-old who went through an intense pat-down through security at New Orleans' Louis Armstrong International Airport.

"A 6-year-old child shouldn't be subjected to this kind of treatment in the first place if there's no reason to suspect her or her parents of being criminals," Marjorie Esman, executive director of the ACLU Louisiana, told CBS affiliate WWL New Orleans, at the time of the incident.

Shortly after that incident was a photograph alleging a TSA agent was giving a baby a pat-down at an airport in Kansas City. A spokesman wrote on the TSA blog that officers followed proper procedures and that the child in the photo received a "modified pat-down."

During a transportation security hearing by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, John Pistole of the TSA had said the agency has been working on a new policy for the use of pat-downs on children.

UK Airport to Test Covert Lie Detectors

Terminal U: A British airport is to trial a covert lie detector test that uses thermal imaging cameras to spot signs of deception.

The device – which will be tested at an undisclosed UK airport – could in theory be used in interviews with customs officers or at passport control, to verify if people are telling the truth about their intentions to enter the country.

The thermal imaging cameras are designed to pick up subtle changes in a person’s temperature – usually increased blood flow and more heat around the eyes – that might indicate they are not telling the truth, scientists claim. The video observations are then fed through to a computer database that stores specific facial expressions and blood flow patterns associated with lying.

The idea is that the interviewer can find out whether the person is lying or not at the touch of a button – and can carry out more intensive interviews if necessary. It is a new approach to lie detection, as unlike traditional (polygraph) tests, people will be unaware that they are being screened.

This technique is still in the early stage of development and its success rate is expected to improve as the system is further developed. Critics argue that the device raises privacy concerns, especially if it is widely adopted at airports.

The Home office and HM Revenue & Customs is sponsoring the research. The system under trial has been designed by Hasan Ugail, professor of visual computing at the UK’s University of Bradford.

Victoria's Secret Moves Into International Airports



Victoria's Secret at Sydney Airport in Australia

Jaunted: We’ve got one more reason to skip Sbarro on your next layover, and that’s so you’ll be able to fit into all the itty bitty things that Victoria’s Secret has to offer. The purveyors of fine undies and other sexy little things are making the move from catalog and mall to the airport, and it’s not just domestic airports either; they’re going global.

Over in Amsterdam, the secret was out this summer, as the store opened up its very first location inside the city’s Schiphol Airport. Of course there will be plenty of under things, but don’t forget those lotions, perfumes, and other beauty goods. This newest location is in addition to a few other options that have been around for a couple years in spots like Brazil, Argentina and Dubai.

Their latest opening—while not exactly international—is still pretty close. Honolulu Airport recently welcomed the store between security checkpoints 3 and 4, so all those foreign tourists can get one slice of America before jetting back home.

It’s all fine and dandy that these stores are making an appearance around the globe, but we’d also like them to remember us folks back here at home. With all those TSA rules and regulations, it would be nice to have a spot where we could pick up a little more than three-ounces of liquid beauty.

Paris Airport Testing Virtual Boarding Agents

Daily Mail: 'Virtual' boarding agents are greeting passengers at a French airport in a bid to jazz up terminals with 21st century avatars who always smile, don't need breaks and never go on strike.

The pilot project at Paris' Orly airport began last month, and has so far been met with a mix of amusement and surprise by travellers.

So convincing are they that people frequently try to touch and speak with the life-like video images that greet them and direct them to their boarding gate.

The images materialise seemingly out of thin air when a boarding agent - a real live human - presses a button to signal the start of boarding.

They are actually being rear-projected onto a human shaped silhouette made of plexiglass. Three real-life airport boarding agents were filmed in a studio to create the illusion, which the airport hopes will be more eye-catching and easier for passengers to understand than traditional electronic display terminals.

'Bonjour! I invite you to go to your boarding gate. Paris Airports wishes you a bon voyage,' the image appears to say, while the name of the destination flashes in front of him.

Airport authority AdP came up with the idea for what it calls '2-D holograms' earlier this year. It was brainstorming ways to modernise Hall 40, one of the dozens of boarding gates at Paris' second airport, south of the capital.

Didier Leroy, the airport's director of operations, said: 'Children like it, it's fun. They're attracted to it and try to play with it. There's finally very few who find it useless or just a gizmo.'

The technology behind the images was developed by a Paris audiovisual marketing agency, L'Oeil du Chat. Similar virtual agents are in place in airports in London and Manchester since earlier this year.

Hall 40 serves about 30 or 40 flights a day, Leroy said. Around one million passengers a year pass through it, mainly on their way to destinations in the south of France and Corsica. The airport decided to make it a 'laboratory' for testing new ways of organising its boarding gates. It received an overhaul this spring that created 40 percent more space and 20 percent more seats so that it can now hold up to 400 waiting passengers.

As passengers boarded a flight to Bastia in Corsica, one small boy of about five years old approached the hologram, this one showing a middle-aged man in a striped shirt and neatly trimmed beard. "Hello!" the boy greeted it. The pre-recorded image smiled, blinked, folded his hands, glanced to the left but said nothing.

Leroy said the airport's experiment with virtual reality will be evaluated by the end of the year, after which it could be expanded to other boarding halls at Orly or to Paris' larger Charles de Gaulle airport.

Not all passengers were as taken with the virtual hosts as the boy.

"It spooks me the way his eyes seem to follow you," said Cedric Olivier, 32, an Air France pilot waiting for his flight. Other passengers hurried past with barely a glance at the hologram, more concerned about boarding the plane and finding space for their carry-ons.

Airport 'Sleepbox' Debuts in Moscow

CNNGO: We figured tourist lodgings in expensive cities couldn't get more "basic" than capsule hotels.

We figured wrong.

A Moscow company is now marketing "Sleepboxes" -- freestanding, mobile boxes with beds inside -- for travelers stranded overnight, or those in need of a quick snooze. The Sleepboxes are meant to be installed in airports -- even at departure lounges -- and rented for 30 minutes to several hours at a time.

A Sleepbox is currently installed at the Sheremetyevo International Airport in Moscow.

"We travel a lot and many times we faced a problem of rest and privacy in airports," says co-designer Mikhail Krymov of design firm Arch Group, who together with Alexei Goryainov came up with the idea of Sleepbox. "And as we are architects, we like to think of solutions."

Measuring 1.4 meters wide, two meters in length and 2.3 meters in height, Sleepbox’s star feature is a two-meter-long bed made of polymer foam and pulp tissue that changes bed linen automatically.

It also comes with luggage space, a ventilation system, WiFi, electric sockets and an LCD TV.

The model unveiled in Moscow is a "hostel" version of the Sleepbox, which includes an additional bunk bed and fold-up desk.

"Imagine the situation that you are in the modern metropolis, where you are not a local resident, and you have not booked a hotel," the designers say on their website. "Thanks to Sleepbox, any person has an opportunity to spend the night safely and cheaply in case of emergency, or when you have to spend few hours with your baggage."

The designers say that the box can be placed at railroad stations, expo centers and even on the streets of countries with warm climates.

"We hope that Sleepboxes will be available all over the world," says Krymov. "Today we are offering Sleepboxes to different companies in Europe, Asia, Africa and the U.S.A. Generally the price of one box starts from US$10,000.

"The idea is to to sell Sleepboxes to local companies, who will be local operators of the business."

We'd like to see them in offices for fatigued workers, as well as shopping malls for tired boyfriends and husbands.

Indy Airport Ditches Art for Ads

WISH8: If you’ve been to the Indianapolis International Airport, you’ve probably admired the artwork in the main terminal. But if you want to see an Indiana artist's centerpiece project, you’d better look quickly because it's about to be taken down.

The artwork called “Chrysalis” (left) sits at the center of one of the busiest passenger intersections in the terminal, and it was commissioned for the space where it hangs. Whether going to get your bags or just passing through, odds are you are going to see the piece.

"You go from one place to another,” said the piece’s creator, James Wille Faust. “The airport is the Chrysalis, it's between sky and earth,"

Now, the sculptural painting – which Faust said includes 14 separate canvases, 10 aluminum pieces and six sand-blasted glass panels – will be put in storage by the end of this month.

"They just announced they would be taking it down, there was no recourse or anything," Faust said.

The Indiana artist, with works known nationally, expected that his creation eventually would be replaced, but not fewer than three years after it was installed and not for electronic screens to display advertising.

"It's going to be removed for advertising space, for digital monitors," he said.

Airport spokesman Carlo Bertolini said that according to the contract with the artist, the airport is allowed to make the change.

"We really are committed to finding a tasteful balance between advertising and art,” he said. “We recognize there's a place for both of them here."

He admitted the very visible location is an important spot.

"It will be replaced by art as well,” he said of the decision to remove Faust’s piece. “But we acknowledge there will be advertising. And it is a good spot, obviously."

Faust said the airport offered to move the piece to the Indiana Convention Center. But he said it would have to be modified to do that, and that would ruin the piece. So instead, the piece will go into storage, and the electronic screens will take its place by September.

"You know, I worked real hard on this piece. I put my heart and soul into it. Like blood, sweat,” Faust said. “Now I'm going to have tears.”

Austrailian Travelers Surprised by Airport Body Scanners

Australian Business Traveller: A surprise trial of controversial 'millimetre wave' body scanners is taking place at Sydney International Airport from today until 19th August. The government says passengers will be given the option of standard screening or passing through the new scanner.

Federal Transport Minister Anthony Albanese said the technology was "perfectly safe" and was the first person through the scanner when it was switched on.

The millimetre-waves are about 10,000 times weaker than a mobile phone signal, and considered much safer than the backscatter x-ray scanners that are used at some US airports. There is not scientific consensus over the safety of the scanners, though. One study by Los Alamos National Labs argued that standards had only been established for radio frequency exposure up to 300 gigahertz, and millimetre wave scanners were above this range.

Even though the strength of the waves is extremely low, the close-to-terahertz radiation used by the scanners could damage DNA in cells.

This is the second time the scanners have been tested in Australian airports. They were previously trialled in Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide airports in October/November 2008, with over 70,000 passengers volunteering to be "imaged" by the machines. The government did not say why it needed to re-test the machines following the initial trial.

What the scanners will show

The scanners detect metal and non-metal items under clothing, and then pin-points where the item is hidden using a generic human outline (above).

The government says the machines will not store any imagery of passengers (however, the US government also made this assurance, before saved passenger images were leaked to a tech blog by a whistleblower.)

Passengers not wanting to try the body scanner will proceed through standard screening procedures. Melbourne Airport will also hold a trial of the scanners, before they are progressively rolled out at Australia’s international airports.

The government gave no warning of the introduction of the millimetre wave scanners, and has instead been focusing on the introduction of backscatter x-ray scanners to be used only on incoming passengers suspected of concealing drugs internally.

Another type of scanner that emits no radiation at all, but simply senses emissions from the human body was recently tested at Sydney Airport.

Hunting Rifle Discharges at Airport Ticket Counter

WDSU: One person was hurt on Monday in what investigators called an accidental shooting at Armstrong International Airport.

Jefferson Parish deputies said they responded to the call about 10:30 a.m.

Investigators said the shooting happened in the ticket counter area. A passenger was checking a hunting rifle at the United Airlines desk when the weapon discharged.

The bullet struck a counter and fragmented, sending a piece of the projectile into the leg of an airline employee. He was taken to a local hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.

The passenger, 65-year-old Edward Deubler, was issued a misdemeanor summons for negligent injury.

"Checking a hunting rifle? Boy, I thought they were strict on toothbrushes," airline passenger Ged Smyth said.

Other passengers said Deubler should have used more caution when bringing the gun to the airport.

"I would hope whoever is doing that is responsible to not have one in the chamber whenever they're locking it up," said Randy Layman.

Under FAA regulations, it is legal to travel with a gun but it has to be declared, checked and unloaded. Fellow hunters said this accidental shooting is an embarrassment to the rest of their community.

In June, Kenner Police arrested three teens following a car chase that ended in a shooting outside the airport.

Those suspects now face a slew of charges including possible attempted murder, because the car police said they stole was being used as a dangerous weapon.

Delta's Terminal 4 Virtual Tour

Can’t wait to see Delta Airlines’ new Terminal 4 expansion at JFK Airport? Well, wait no longer.

Delta  has released a new preview of the $1.2 billion expansion which is set to open in 2013. The new facility will replace Terminal 3 as Delta’s main JFK hub and is expected to handle over 11 million passengers every year.

Terminal 4 will be one of the largest in North America, and Delta promises that it will dramatically improve the experience for its passengers with expanded security checkpoints, faster taxi times for aircraft, more check-in areas, and a large business class lounge with an "ample" number of power plugs and USB outlets.

TSA to Introduce Pre-Screening Program

USA Today: The government said Thursday that it would introduce a new airport security screening method this fall aimed at expediting clearance of passengers who submit personal information.

The trial follows a barrage of complaints from fliers, lawmakers and the travel industry that increasingly aggressive screening procedures — pat-downs and body-imaging machines — used by the Transportation Security Administration are offensive.

Passengers who submit background information and can be vetted to be trusted travelers should be given a faster option, they argue. "These improvements will enable our officers to focus their efforts on higher-risk areas," TSA Administrator John Pistole says.

The trial is an extension of Secure Flight, an airline pre-screening program launched by the TSA in 2009 that matches passenger information against No-Fly or other government terror alert lists. Only a select few U.S. citizens will be invited via e-mail to participate in the trial: some elite members of Delta Air Lines' frequent-flier program flying from its hubs in Atlanta and Detroit, and some elite members of American Airlines' frequent-flier program at Dallas/Fort Worth and Miami.

TSA also will invite some members who've been vetted for U.S. Customs' three existing Trusted Traveler programs: Global Entry for international arrivals; Nexus for USA-Canada border crossing; and Sentri for USA-Mexico borders. Selected members of these programs can clear expedited screening only if they're flying the participating airlines at the selected airports. For example, a Global Entry member who flies American can walk through the expedited security lane at Dallas/Fort Worth, but not in Atlanta.

TSA spokesman Nicholas Kimball says "passengers with extensive travel history" are likely to be ones eligible for the trial. Other details:

•Vetted travelers will be issued a bar code on their boarding passes, which will be scanned by agents who check identification. Passengers will then be routed to a dedicated lane at the security checkpoint.

•TSA is still working out details, but Pistole has said participants will likely be able to keep their shoes on and keep their laptops in their bags.

•All passengers in the trial will be subject to random screening.

Man Tried to Board Plane With 13 Knives

MSNBC: A 24-year-old Baltimore man tried to a board a flight last week with 13 knives packed in his carry-on luggage (right).

Amr Gamal Shedid was attempting to fly from Baltimore Washington International Airport to Minnesota on July 7 when a security officer operating an X-ray machine noticed something suspicious and discovered the 12 switchblades and a butterfly knife in the flier's luggage, according to Sgt. Kirk Perez, a spokesperson for the Maryland Transportation Authority Police. Shedid told officers that he collected knives.

The man did not appear to be involved in a plot or a threat onboard the plane. "We don’t have any indication to lead us to believe anything along those lines at this time," said Perez.

Shedid has been charged with carrying a concealed dangerous weapon, which is illegal in Maryland and carries a $1,000 fine and/or up to three years prison. He was also been charged with carrying an unauthorized weapon into an airport and interfering with the security process in an airport. Perez said that Shedid did not resist arrest.

"Every day TSA officers stop knives, guns, and other weapons from getting from one side of the checkpoint to the other," said Kawika Riley a spokesman for the Transportation Security Administration. "But it's not every day that a passenger attempts to bring over a dozen weapons onto a plane in a single carry-on."

Delta's Atlanta Airport Lounge Just for Kids

Jaunted: Traveling with children can sometimes be a pain, but Delta’s got a new idea that might make things a little better. For right now it’s only for unaccompanied minors traveling without Mom or Dad, but maybe eventually it’ll be open for all the little ones to swing by and blow off some steam.

The Delta Sky Zone is open in Atlanta on Concourses, B, C, and E, and it’s available to those little ones connecting all by themselves—or with a little help from Delta employees. Inside, kids have access to brand new furniture to bounce all over, XBOX 360s, and unfortunately some kind of educational materials. We’re thinking that there’s got to be some soda and chips thrown in their too, or at least a little tap water. Video games during a layover would definitely make us thirsty!

The new spots are designed for kids ages eight and up, so they’re attempting to make it appeal for the youngins, tweens, and beyond. Right now things are just in Atlanta, but Delta promises that it’s working on similar spots in their other hubs for the future.

It’s definitely nice for the kiddies to have a spot to call their own as well, because as much as we love the little ones it’s kind of annoying when they take up three or four chairs to construct a personal fort in the Delta Sky Club. To be honest though, we’re just jealous that we’re can’t do the same thing.

TSA Under Fire for Security Breaches

9News: Despite billions being spent on security, critics in Congress charged on Wednesday that the nation's airports are still vulnerable to terror attacks. The Transportation Security Administration came under particular fire with some congressmen wondering whether the agency is worth the money.

Armed with a report showing some 25,000 security breaches at the nation's airports since 9/11, a congressional committee went after the beleaguered transportation security administration. Even bomb-sniffing dogs were brought in to make a point that they're just as, if not more, efficient than TSA's body imaging equipment.

"You take 1,000 people and put them into a room, I'll give you t10 whole body-imaging machines," Representative Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah. "You give me 5,000 people in another room. You give me one of his dogs and we will find that bomb before you find your bomb.

TSA assistant administrator John Sammon defended the agency, though, saying the number of breaches is misleading and represents only a fraction of the 5.5 billion people screened since 9/11. "TSA's goal is to work with airport authorities to stay ahead of evolving terrorist threats while protecting passengers' privacy," Sammon said.

Still, airport directors like Charlotte's Jerry Orr called the TSA "arrogant and bureaucratic." It was at Charlotte's airport in 2010 that a teenager slipped through security, stowed away and died in the wheel well of a passenger jet bound for Boston.

"Congress should continue to support, its support of allowing airports to opt out of using TSA," Orr said.

Included in the breaches cited in the report are some 6,000 travelers who made it past government screeners without proper scrutiny.

Florida Couple Says TSA Search Went Too Far

A disabled Florida couple say they were subjected to a humiliating search by over-zealous airport security officials. Jason and Jennifer Steitler claim they were groped under their clothes by TSA agents last week at Greater Rochester International Airport in New York.

The pat downs were so intrusive that Mrs Steitler went as far as describing the experience as a 'search rape'. "It was extremely thorough, almost a violation," says Mr Steitler. "They did the hair then did the neck. Then they had me do a pushup in my chair, then got down into my inner thigh around my back side. It's the most thorough search [I've] had done in my life."

Steitler says they've complained to the TSA about their experience, but all they've received back is a standard form letter. "Just the standard reply to everything: 'In order to fly you have to be searched,' '" says Steitler.

Woman Arrested After Refusing Pat-Down of Daughter

The Tennessean: A 41-year-old Clarksville woman was arrested after Nashville airport authorities say she was belligerent and verbally abusive to security officers, refusing for her daughter to be patted down at a security checkpoint.

Andrea Fornella Abbott yelled and swore at Transportation Security Administration agents Saturday afternoon at Nashville International Airport, saying she did not want her daughter to be “touched inappropriately or have her “crotch grabbed,” a police report states.

After the woman refused to calm down, airport police said, she was charged with disorderly conduct and taken to jail. She has been released on bond. Attempts to reach Abbott on Tuesday were unsuccessful. The report does not list her daughter’s age. The mother and daughter were traveling from Nashville to Baltimore on Southwest Airlines.

“(She) told me in a very stearn voice with quite a bit of attitude that they were not going through that X-ray,” Sabrina Birge, an airport security officer, told police. “No, it’s not an X-ray,” she told Abbott. “It is 10,000 times safer than your cell phone and uses the same type of radio waves as a sonogram.”

“I still don’t want someone to see our bodies naked,” Abbott said, according to the police report. At one point, Abbott tried unsuccessfully to take a video with her cellphone.

TSA policy revised

The arrest comes on the heels of public outrage over a video showing a pat-down of a 6-year-old girl at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport. The April video prompted a new policy that took effect last month in which airport security screeners must try to avoid invasive pat-down searches of children.

TSA says it will instruct screeners how to make repeated attempts to screen young children without invasive pat-downs. The instructions should reduce the number of pat-downs on children, TSA says.

Airline Passenger Caught with TWO Stun Guns

NewYork Post: Just two days after a stun gun was found on a JetBlue plane that had just landed at Newark Airport, a passenger at JFK Airport was caught trying to board a plane with two stun guns stashed in his luggage, sources said.

The latest incident -- which appears unrelated to the first -- occurred shortly after 9 p.m. Sunday in the Queens airport's Terminal One, according to the sources.

Othon Mourkakos, 53, a restaurateur from Alpine, NJ, was busted as he waited to catch a Lufthansa Airlines flight for Frankfurt, Germany, the sources said.

Transportation Security Administration screener Romane Romain noticed the stun guns in a suitcase during an X-ray and physical bag search, according to a criminal complaint.

"I didn't know it was illegal in New York," Mourkakos allegedly told authorities.

He claimed to have bought the weapons for relatives in Greece because of the civil unrest there, a law-enforcement source said. His arrest follows Friday evening's discovery of a stun gun on JetBlue Flight 1179 from Boston after it had landed in Newark and its passengers had departed, the sources said.

The stun gun was found by a member of the flight crew in the back pocket of seat 9B. The Boston office of the FBI is investigating, a source said.