Traveling Tales

New at the Airport: Get Puffed!

By Alan Kleinfeld, 6-20-06

	A puffer in action in France

Have you ever been “puffed” at an airport? I got my first “puffing” at the Jacksonville, Florida airport less than a year ago as I was processed through security. I had no idea at the time what the contraption was the TSA agent asked me to walk into, but the Star Trek-esque device made a loud cough and shot me in the face with a cool puff of air. Actually, I thought it felt good.

Turns out the gizmo detects trace amounts of explosives and is called a Trace Portal Machine. According to a TSA press release, the “state-of-the-art machines further enhance TSA’s ability to detect explosives at the checkpoint and have added customer service benefits.” It sounds kind of threatening, but the device isn’t all that scarey. It looks like the bigger brother of the regular metal detector. It’s a little taller and wider. You step in, wait a few seconds, get puffed, wait a few seconds and, if you “pass,” you exit.

If you want to be puffed, book a flight out of Dulles, JFK, Miami, San Fran, Phoenix, Boston, Salt Lake City, Las Vegas and about 20 other cities. Oh yeah, Albuquerque, too. We now have two of our own puffer machines. They go great with the newly expanded, eight-lane security area. And we wouldn’t want our security essentials to clash, would we?

TSA says, “As [passengers] enter the trace portal, they will be asked to stand still for a few seconds while several 'bursts' of air are released, dislodging microscopic particles from passengers that are then collected and analyzed for traces of explosives. A computerized voice indicates when a passenger may exit the portal.”

The release also states, “The city of Albuquerque’s decision to expand the screening area played a tremendous role in the development of our new state-of-the-art checkpoint, including the installation of the trace portal technology… Working together we will continue to enhance security and the overall traveler experience.”

The trace portals cost TSA about $160,000, according to their website.

Airport spokesman Daniel Jiron says Albuquerque is happy to have the new device as it enhances security and makes the process more passenger-friendly. Plus, with only a handful of airports in the country with the trace portal, it says good things of Albuquerque that TSA decided to install them in an airport of our size.

When I spoke to Jiron, the first words out of my mouth were, “I’m calling about the new puffer. Is that what’s it’s called?” He told me TSA refers to it as a trace portal, but he admits that they also call it the Puffer. Trace Portal sounds very sci-fi, which works for me. But I still prefer Puffer. Considering all we go through at the airport these days, being “puffed” sounds both soothing and fun at the same time.

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