New Scanners Ready To Go at Tampa International Airport
If you’re flying out of Tampa this week, you might see something new as you get ready to board your flight. Biometric screening is something all airports are going to have by 2024. But Tampa International has them now, replacing the traditional boarding pass scanners.
How does it work?
When you walk up to the gate, the scanner takes a photo of you. It compares the photo to what’s on your passport photo that’s on file. It also checks for things like your name to make sure it matches up with who’s booked for that flight. Once you’re cleared, you walk in and sensors prevent anyone from trying to piggyback their way in with you.
Is it faster?
According to the Tampa International website, a plane carrying 130 passengers boards 3 to 4 times faster. The scanners helped speed things up from about 30-40 minutes to 11 minutes.
So far there are only 8 of the machines ready to go but they say more are on the way. U.S. Customs and Border Protection has make it a rule that all international flights will need these biometric scanners by 2024. They’ll also be used on the ground and for cruise ships. The agency was formed two years after the events of 9/11.
Residents Say Tampa Is Missing These 7 Things
There are a lot of reasons people are moving to Tampa Bay and causing so much congestion. Long time locals are unhappy about it. There’s always traffic. The cost of living has gone up. As for me, I’m always surprised it took this long. Tampa should’ve been overcrowded decades ago.
Florida became my permanent home about 10 years ago, but I’d been hoping to have a Florida license plate on my car ever since my first visit about 25 years ago. I’ll never forget it. It was in February and I couldn’t stop thinking, “Wait, you can live like this? And it costs LESS?” So the fact that it took so long for the Tampa area to become so popular is hard for me to understand.
We have great beaches nearby. There’s no state income tax. There are plenty of things to do. We have great sports teams. We get concerts from club shows up to arena and stadium acts. The foodie and craft beer scenes are bursting. And we don’t own an ice scraper. But on the Tampa reddit today, one local asked … what’s missing? What’s that one thing our city could have to make life perfect?
Hear Geno on the air weekday afternoons. Geno's passions include fat guy food, concerts, sports, travel to Europe and South America. He loves 80s and 90s music, from MTV hairbands to old school freestyle, alternative rock to TRL era jams. Geno's radio career began in his hometown of Portland, Maine. Since then he's been on the air coast to coast from Boston to Las Vegas, Tampa to California.
