Denver International Airport is about to get a boost in its oft-maligned efforts to keep up with sky-high passenger traffic when the first of two new state-of-the-art security checkpoints opens inside the main terminal in less than two weeks.
The sleek 17-lane West Security Checkpoint is in the northwest corner of the terminal on Level 6, in an area once occupied by several airline ticket counters. It overlooks the existing — and soon-to-be-closed — north main security checkpoint down below.
Curious passengers will be able to use at least a few of the new checkpoint’s lanes beginning Tuesday, as part of a soft launch. To get there, they will walk past United Airlines’ check-in areas or cross over from the east side.
The west checkpoint will be stood up entirely on Feb. 6, the morning after the north checkpoint screens its final passengers. Airport officials gave members of the media a preview of the all-but-completed space Wednesday, showing off gleaming equipment.
Once the lanes are humming, and after Transportation Security Administration agents and the flying public get used to using them, each is expected to be able to process about 200 passengers per hour, said Aubrey Roth, DIA’s senior manager for terminal operations. That’s up from the 130 to 150 passengers per hour that a standard security lane at DIA’s other checkpoints can handle now, or an increase of 33% to 54%.
The key is modern technology that speeds up the security screening process in small ways, shaving off a second here and there for each passenger.
When it’s all added together, it should make the front end of getting to a flight out of Denver slightly smoother at an airport that ranked third busiest in the world in 2022, when also accounting for people catching connecting flights.
“As we talk about adding checkpoint capacity here at the airport, we’re really excited to use all of this equipment … to build those efficiencies,” Roth said.
Read on for more about how the checkpoint fits into the project and what travelers should know.
Major milestone of terminal renovation
The upcoming checkpoint opening comes after nearly six years of construction noise, dust and — at times — confounding temporary configurations in the massive terminal as part of DIA’s $2.1 billion terminal renovation project. Begun in 2018, the project has weathered delays, a major contractor breakup, and the addition of scope and costs.
The work is far from done. A second new security checkpoint is expected to open across the atrium from the west checkpoint, on the east side of Level 6, in late 2025, according to Roth. Other remaining work includes renovations of check-in areas for airlines besides United, Southwest and Frontier, which already occupy fresh spaces. Completion is currently expected in late 2027.
For decades, DIA management and federal officials have done what they could with what they had on the main floor, Level 5, by cramming more machinery into tight spaces at the existing north and south checkpoints, which handle the bulk of screening. Those checkpoints have given security professionals heartburn because of how exposed they are from the balconies above.
The new west checkpoint solves those problems before sending passengers on a two-story escalator ride down to the airport’s concourse trains on Level 4 — though those trains have run into operational issues on occasion, including most of the day Tuesday.
“It’s quite an extraordinary setup,” said Jeff Price, a Metropolitan State University of Denver aviation department professor and an expert in airport security, of the west checkpoint. Price received a sneak peek at the new lanes last week.
“It’s the next level of airport screening, so to speak,” he said.
How DIA’s security setup changes
DIA’s longstanding setup, with two main checkpoints and a third checkpoint on the bridge between the terminal and Concourse A, is due to shift over time.
First, the west checkpoint will replace the north screening area. Then, once the east checkpoint opens late next year, the south main checkpoint — on the end of the terminal nearest to the hotel and transit center — will close down, as will the bridge checkpoint. That will leave all screening to the two new checkpoints on Level 6.
In the meantime, construction crews will work to extend Level 6’s eastern balcony another 40 feet into the atrium to accommodate the east checkpoint.
New routines to learn
More immediately, travelers in early February may have their routines disrupted.
While the existing bridge security and south checkpoint will continue to be key cogs in passenger throughput, the west screening area will be close by for passengers stopping through check-in areas for United and other west terminal airlines. But it’ll be more out of the way for others.
Passengers who have to check bags with Southwest or Frontier, for instance, or who arrive at DIA via the A Line, might find the south checkpoint more convenient.
“We want to keep all the checkpoints evenly charged or balanced and not overload any one checkpoint,” said Michael Sheehan, DIA’s project manager for the terminal renovation.
Asked if he expected some passengers to choose the west checkpoint regardless of where they entered the airport out of curiosity about how it will operate, Sheehan said, “I would.”
DIA says it will have dedicated staffers at each of the checkpoint’s three entryways, directing people on where to go and how to move through the lanes.
What about PreCheck?
In recent years, DIA has made the north checkpoint the primary screening area for PreCheck members, while the south and bridge checkpoints are primarily for standard screening. But starting Feb. 6, both the new west and existing south checkpoints will have a mix of PreCheck and standard screening lanes, simplifying things a little.
The west checkpoint will be open from 4 a.m. to about 7:30 p.m. daily, with the south screening area continuing to serve as the 24-hour checkpoint.
What’s new in the west checkpoint?
The west checkpoint features an array of the latest tech and gadgets, including digital signboards to give passengers up-to-the-minute info on where they need to go for the smoothest experience.
Waiting on the end of the hopefully shorter security lines will be digital ID readers that can use cameras to compare a live images of passengers to their photo IDs, instead of requiring a TSA agent to do it visually. That option has been piloted in some other DIA security lanes.
Beyond ID check are bag scanners that will allow travelers to leave their laptops and travel-sized shampoos in their luggage while their bags are screened. They’ll walk through updated body scanning equipment.
And the new checkpoint makes use of equipment that’s been tested in the past at DIA. Each automated screening lane will have three stations where flyers can step up and place their bags in large bins labeled with radio frequency identification tags, then push them onto the belt. They won’t have to wait on the person next to them to finish loading their bin.
That’s a setup TSA officials hope will cut down on the awkward times when people bunch up.
“Significant investments in our operation”
The west checkpoint marks the first time since DIA opened in 1995 that airport management and TSA officials were able to design a new space adapted to all of the extra layers of screening that have been added to flying since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Lorie Dankers, a TSA spokeswoman, said the airport and agency worked hand-in-hand on every step of the checkpoint “to make sure that when it came to options, we found the one that was the most efficient, that worked for our employees, worked for the travelers and worked for the airport.”
She credited DIA for making “significant investments in our operation.”
Last fall, DIA and the TSA signed an agreement that called for the airport to invest $30 million in new screening equipment for the checkpoint.
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