ShoeScanner Fails Orlando Tests

by Catherine Bodry on

A device that would’ve allowed passengers to keep their shoes on at airport security has failed. Removing shoes in airport security lines is one of a passenger’s biggest inconveniences, and the ShoeScanner raised hopes of faster, shorter security lines. After repeated tests at Orlando International Airport this year, however, the ShoeScanner “still does not meet standards to ensure detection of explosives,” the TSA said.

Of course, the Scanner was only available to those that could pay the yearly $100 fee to go through a separate line. For the rest of us, it was business as usual in the long line of peasants.

[via USA Today]

Shoe Sniffer

by Iva Skoch on

The TSA has just approved a new scanner by GE Security, which allows airline passengers to step into/onto a kiosk that not only scans their shoes (no shoe removal necessary!), but it also has an explosives trace detector built in.

This means it performs the equivalent of the “air puff” test, but it actually tests the passenger’s fingers for traces of explosives.

Unfortunately, it will only be used for those folks that have signed up for the poorly-implemented Registered Traveler Program, which charges passengers $100/year…and has thus far only been implemented in Orlando.

But, last time I was at Newark, TSA folks were simply waving us through the air-puff machine, even though it was showing the red, “stop” hand sign, just proving there’ll always be a human element thrown into these tests.