Airport group wants addition

BURBANK — The Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority will submit a proposal to the city of Burbank to build two buildings at Bob Hope Airport to comply with a federal mandate to alleviate security concerns and ease congestion in Terminal B, officials said.

The move comes in response to a July 31 letter from the Transportation Security Administration saying that space limitations in Terminal B — which is used by United, Skywest, American and Alaska airlines — is posing problems for the airport’s baggage-screening machine, said Dan Feger, deputy executive director for the airport.

“[The Transportation Security Administration] has made it known to us

that this machine, its configuration, the way that the bags are handled there and the congestion that they experience — there’s a safety and security concern for them,” he said. “And they have asked us to provide additional space for them to replace this machine with a higher capacity, better technology machine that will allow them to inspect all of the bags.”

To provide additional space, airport staffers are proposing a new building south of the existing terminal to be used exclusively for inspecting baggage, he said. They are also proposing a second, temporary structure to accommodate rental car operations away from the main terminal.

But any talk of adding buildings to the airport evokes the airport authority’s development agreement with the city of Burbank, established in January 2005 to govern airport expansion.

Though a new building for inspecting baggage would likely not be allowed under the terms of the development agreement, a federal mandate puts the proposal in a different category, Feger said.

“I will tell you without a federal mandate, the development agreement would probably not permit the [proposed baggage inspection building] because it’s a terminal-related function,” he said. “We could not just go on our own and build more baggage-handling equipment inspection space. But because we do have a mandate from the [Transportation Security Administration], we do believe that the development agreement permits that.”

The development agreement contains an exception that the footprint of the terminal can be expanded when mandated by federal law or according to regulations or a written request from the Transportation Security Administration, airport spokesman Victor Gill said.