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'An engineering solution to weakness': A look at changes coming to DIA

The biggest change in the $1.8 billion projects you'll notice are revamped security checkpoints.
Changes are coming to Denver International Airport, and the biggest one most passengers will notice is how security is done.

A project to revamp the Denver International Airport begins in the New Year, and as security measures change, so will the security checkpoints.

DIA was built 22 years ago, before threats of active shooters or suicide bombers.

"When they were building Denver International, those things weren't even in the conversation," aviation security expert Jeff Price said.

Price is a professor at Metropolitan State University who says the construction beginning in the new year will take away a security vulnerability because the checkpoints are easily accessible and visible from level 6 of DIA.

"The direction Denver is going is an engineering solution to the weakness," Price said.

Part of the $1.8 billion plan to revamp the great hall includes moving the checkpoints up one floor and enclosing them.

By the time that's completed in four years, Price thinks walking through the lines might be a lot easier too.

"TSA is starting to slowly experiment with using these cat scan type, medical type X-ray machines at the checkpoint so that we don't have to haul our liquids out, we don't have to haul our laptop out, we don't have to haul our food out," he said.

Price says TSA's plan is to get more people signed up for pre-check because "ultimately we want as many trusted travelers as we can so we can focus the technology and the personnel on the highest risk passengers."

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