Airport Lines Move Smoothly Despite Warnings

"(AP)
The lines of Thanksgiving travelers moved smoothly at airports around the country Wednesday morning despite an Internet campaign to get passengers to gum up the works on one of the busiest days of the year by refusing full-body scans.

The Transportation Security Administration said very few passengers opted out. And there were only scattered protesters — including, presumably, a man seen walking around the Salt Lake City airport in a skimpy, Speedo-style bathing suit, and a woman reported to be wearing a bikini in Los Angeles.

After days of tough talk on the Internet and warnings of possible delays, some passengers decided to go to the airport especially early and were pleasantly surprised.

Retirees Bill and Margaret Selfridge arrived three hours ahead of schedule at the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport for their flight to Washington. It took only 10 minutes to get through the checkpoint at 8 a.m.

""Now we get to drink a lot of coffee,"" Bill Selfridge said.

Ruth Billingsly, 52, showed up three hours early at the Philadelphia airport for her trip to Los Angeles. ""It was a breeze,"" she said. ""I'm really, really early. Maybe I should take a nap.""

A loosely organized effort dubbed National Opt-Out Day planned to use fliers, T-shirts and, in one case, a Scottish kilt to highlight what some call unnecessarily intrusive security screenings. The screenings have been lampooned on ""Saturday Night Live"" and mocked on T-shirts, bumper stickers and underwear emblazoned ""Don't Touch My Junk,"" from a line uttered by a traveler in San Diego who objected to a pat-down. "