Arrived two hours before my flight, around 10:15 a.m., at DIA. The trunk-checking folks outside the garage were all airport security, with Denver PD lounging off to one side.
The lines at the United counter were walk-up short. No problems there. Checked my bag.
Went through the main security for the first time isnce 9-11 (vs. ducking up to Concourse A security). The line was short — no more than a few minutes. Somebody was checking boarding passes ahead of time.
There was a detailed list of what was not allowable on-board. I was shocked, shocked to discover I could not bring a baseball bat on-board.
Unlike previously, we were told we could put out PDAs and cell-phones inside of our briefcases and purses, but that (as before) laptops needed to be run through separately.
I beeped going through the metal detectors. It appeared that half to two-thirds of the folks beeped as well. I suspect they have cranked up the machines.
There were a lot of airport security people in evidence. And they seemed to be taking more time looking at bags on the X-ray machine.
Folks who beep are now not allowed to empty their pockets and re-try. Now we all got to queue up in a glass-walled line area.
When I came to the front of the queue (watching my bag and my laptop sitting out on the back side of the X-ray belt), I stepped to the carpeted area and allowed myself to be thoroughly wanded — top to bottom, front and back and up between the legs, the whole nine yards. Things which caused beeps (my wallet, my drivers license, my change, my pen) went into a little box. My shoes beeped, too, so they went into a bag. The box and the bag went through the X-ray machine on their own.
I was asked to unbuckle my belt and was wanded center-line to make sure that nothing was hidden there.
Ultimately everything checked out and I had to gather my shoes, wallet, laptop and briefcase, and hustled off to the train.
Note to Ms. Oden (more about whom read here) — I was asked to stand aside and was wanded and my stuff examined closely. Amazingly enough, since I didn’t object, I was allowed to board my plane. A lesson to be learned?
On the LAX side of things, they are now checking luggage tags against luggage. That’s not anti-terrorism, but it is, in fact, a reasonable security measure that very, very few airports do any more. Fortunately, I hadn’t thrown away my check tag (since LAX hasn’t checked them for some years in my recollection).
(InstaPundit observes that folks wouldn’t be irked about not being able to bring carry-ons on-board if they were given more assurance by the airlines that checked baggage would reliably and quickly be there when they arrived on the other end.)