MIAMI – New high-tech security measures are coming to Miami International Airport.
Airport officials are bringing in new equipment to help speed up the dreaded TSA security lines.
"(It) makes you feel like you're going to a jail process," one traveler, Charles Cintron, said. "But we're good. Thank God we haven't been through that one, yet. Now we know a little bit what it feels like."
Two new automated security screening lanes went online in Concourse D earlier this month -- the result of a partnership among TSA, MIA and American Airlines.
The bins are bigger to fit in more things, and people can send more of their stuff through the X-ray machine at once.
Personnel are still on hand to usher travelers through the process and screen bags.
If everything checks out, travelers' belongings come back to them at the other end.
If not, it gets diverted to an officer.
Even the process of sending the empty bins back to waiting passengers has been automated.
American Airlines representatives say MIA is its largest international hub and third busiest in the country.
The busy holiday travel season is right around the corner, so getting the new lanes up and running was a priority.
The airport is already seeing about a 25 percent increase in passenger through-times.
"Really, these lanes are a departure from yesterday and a glimpse into tomorrow," said Dan Ronan, MIA's TSA federal security director.
The plan is to implement more of the automated lanes at MIA and airports across the country in the coming year.