Security was ramped up today at the regional airport used most frequently by Lawrence residents.

Joe McBride, a spokesman for Kansas City International Airport, told the Journal-World the airport had brought in additional law enforcement – in addition to the usual staff of airport police – to raise security levels after news broke this morning of a plot to bomb planes heading to the U.S. from Britain

Passengers with carry-on baggage were advised to arrive 90 minutes early, he said; people checking their baggage were encouraged to be at the airports two hours before departure.

“Delays at KCI are minimal, although flights arriving from other airports may experience delays as the day progresses,” McBride said.

Among the crowds at KCI today was Lawrence resident Howard Rytting, a Kansas University professor of pharmacy who was taking his 12-year-old granddaughter to the Southwest Airlines terminal so she could fly to Colorado.

“We heard about it early this morning,” Rytting said of the terror news. “The only change was that we left an hour early.”

He added: “I don’t think anything is any different than it was yesterday. In fact, it may be safer because of the extra security.”

In Topeka, Maj. Gen. Tod Bunting, the Kansas adjutant general and the state’s director of homeland security, told the Journal-World that he had been notified by federal officals at midnight of the coming news.

“They tried to give the state directors a heads-up,” he said.

State security officials are not taking any new steps at this point, he said.

“At this point in time, no. That’s all air travel-centric,” which is federal jurisdiction, Bunting said.

But state officials will be paying attention to events, he said.

“We’re looking at it to see if there’s going to be any spinoff (of the terror plot) into something besides the transportation mode,” Bunting said.