MAXWELTON — Greenbrier Valley Airport this week became one of the first airports of its size to boast a cutting-edge passenger screening system.

Installed by the Transportation Security Administration in slightly more than a quarter of the nation’s 450 airports to date, the Advanced Imaging Technology device safely screens passengers for both metallic and non-metallic threats, including weapons and explosives.

According to TSA spokesman Kawika Riley, the AIT has detected more than 1,300 firearms concealed on boarding airline passengers nationwide.

The new Automated Target Recognition software was developed, in part, due to modesty and personal privacy concerns voiced by the traveling public about the original scanning software that produced passenger-specific images.

As demonstrated at the airport Wednesday, a TSA officer directs the outbound airline passenger into the glass and metal AIT machine, which is open on both ends for ingress and egress. Standing at a specified spot in the apparatus, the passenger is asked to raise his or her arms while the scan takes place — a matter of a few seconds.

The AIT scanning device bounces electromagnetic waves off of the passenger’s body to detect items which may be concealed under the person’s clothes.

The new software features a monitor attached to the AIT unit. When the software detects potential threat items on a passenger, a generic outline of a person appears on the monitor, highlighting the items in question, which show up on the monitor as yellow boxes.

“When the screening detects an anomaly on a person, the TSA officer proceeds to make sure it isn’t an actual threat,” Riley explained. “The TSA officer would request that the person allow a targeted pat-down of the area of the body corresponding to where the yellow box appears on the human outline on the monitor.”

He noted, “Most people comply with no objection. People want to make sure when they’re traveling — when their family is traveling — that they’re as safe as possible.”

If no anomalies are detected, the word “OK” appears on the monitor, with no outline, and the passenger is cleared.

AIT cannot store, print, transmit or save the generic human outlines, and the image is automatically deleted from the system after it is cleared by the security officer.

Riley pointed out that of the TSA’s 50,000 employees, one in four are either military veterans or currently serving in the National Guard or Reserve. Most of the employees have worked for the agency in excess of five years, a level of experience that represents a major improvement over the pre-9/11 non-federalized checkpoints where the average worker had been on the job only three months, Riley said.

Greenbrier Valley Airport already had the more familiar metal detector in place as a screening device, and that will remain as a back-up unit to the new AIT machine, according to Riley.

He said when passenger volume is high, officers may split the screenings between the two machines, thereby helping to keep flight delays to a minimum.

Airport manager Jerry O’Sullivan appreciates that advantage, which is particularly important with the increase in passenger count he has seen over the past year.

“Our passengers were up 80 percent this fiscal year over last,” O’Sullivan noted. “The Atlanta flights are working well for us.”

Of the new screening device, he remarked, “This helps the airport be even more customer-friendly.”

The timing of installation of the upgraded screening device is also fortuitous for another reason, O’Sullivan said, noting the recently-completed remodel of the airport terminal provided the extra space now needed for the AIT.

“This (terminal) was all designed three years ago to accommodate this technology,” he said. “It was programmed in.”

He said without the extra space included in the remodel, the airport would be faced with the “significant expense” Charleston’s airport incurred to install the AIT or the redesign complications Huntington is still wrestling with.

“People love this terminal,” O’Sullivan said, emphasizing that the fixtures, furnishings and architectural features at Greenbrier Valley are similar to those found at much larger airports around the country.

“When people arrive here, it’s familiar to them,” he said.

O’Sullivan predicts that familiarity will be a plus for the expected influx of Boy Scouts and their families bound for next year’s National Jamboree, which will be staged at the Summit Bechtel Reserve in nearby Fayette County.

The airport manager also fielded a few media questions about the potential impact of the disagreement between Delta Airlines and The Greenbrier resort, which had a contract to subsidize Delta’s flights in and out of Greenbrier Valley.

Delta sued the White Sulphur Springs resort for $4 million in what the airline claims are subsidies due for the past year’s flights. Negotiations to settle the dispute are now under way between The Greenbrier and Delta, according to the resort’s CEO, Jim Justice.

“The New York flight will terminate in mid-February,” O’Sullivan confirmed. “But, on the positive side, we’re going to pick up three additional flights from Atlanta, including a late and an early flight that so many business travelers want. We’re also picking up a same-day west coast flight through Atlanta.

“It’s unfortunate to lose New York, but most of our traffic goes through Atlanta anyway.”

Lewisburg Mayor John Manchester, who attended Wednesday’s demonstration of the AIT, said of the Delta situation, “We’re waiting and watching like everyone else.”

He was complimentary in speaking about the sleek redesign of the airport, saying, “The quality of this airport is a feather in the cap of all of the region’s economic development activities.”

— E-mail: talvey@register-herald.com