Sea-Tac Airport says stepped up security won’t snarl holiday travel

Sea-Tac Airport has increased security along with the rest of the nation’s airports and train stations in the wake of the Paris terrorist attacks. But most travelers likely won’t notice much change.

“A lot of things that are going on are behind the scenes,” said Sea-Tac Airport spokesman Perry Cooper. “We are very vigilant in our security on a daily basis throughout the year.”

The Transportation Security Administration has “doubled down” on security at airports, and wait times have gone up, although not dramatically, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said.

The crash of a Russian passenger jet in October prompted security enhancements at airports overseas that have flights to the United States, Johnson said.

Despite the security increase, “we know of no specific credible threat of a Paris-like attack directed against the U.S. homeland,” he said.

Sea-Tac expects nearly 800,00 travelers to make their way through the airport throughout the Thanksgiving holiday week, according to Cooper. The busiest days are Wednesday and Sunday.

“We stay in contact with our federal partners – Homeland Security, the FBI. All those folks are always in close contact with us so we can react as quickly as possible,” Cooper said.

While lines are sure to be long, Cooper says some new security tools, including dogs, will actually help speed things up, at least a little.

“The lines may look long to begin with … but they move very fast. Part of it is because they are using these K-9 [explosives] sniffers that end up turning everybody into pre-check passengers.”

That means TSA security personnel won’t have to individually test random passengers with explosive swabs after the dog screening, although Cooper says security will still randomly change up procedures to avoid predictability.