Oh what a good usability/workflow study would do for airport security!

I just witnessed one of the most chaotic security checkpoints at Ft Lauderdale airport. Once you entered the screening area, I was told there were three lines but they weren't well defined because too many people were milling about, covering up the small number of posts they had set up. So the security person had to yell at us to inform us of the lines we couldn't see.

Then we ran out of boxes to put our stuff in before it got x-rayed. I had to tell the security person about this as she couldn't see from where she was standing what the box count was. Then I watched as she yelled out "2 and 3 need more bind". And that was her extent of getting us more boxes. When they were brought to our lines, the guy pushing the cart of boxes couldn't get through because the seats that other guests were sittin on to check the X-ray machines were blocking the way. At this point we were just waiting for the boxes as we couldn't proceed with out them. It took them a while to move the hairs, back the other bin out and replace it with the new one.

And at that point, we were like ravenous beasts who hadn't eaten in weeks--people retched for the bins as if their life depended on it, grabbing ones out of the hands of other passengers.

I've been through a lot of security checkpoints during my travel but this has to be one of the most congested and chaotic ones.