Travel –
TSA Desperately Needs An Overhaul
The Transportation Security Administration in its current form is an utter disaster. With the heavy summer travel season just around the corner, the agency could become a complete catastrophe.
Travel
I recently traveled on a flight from Atlanta Hartsfield Airport to New York LaGuardia. As a PreCheck member, I expected to arrive at the airport an hour or so before my flight and breeze through security (which is the privilege I paid for). Â That did not happen.
The PreCheck line was a 45 minute minimum wait.  The regular security line had a wait of 2 hours or more. Why? Because the TSA employed ONE agent for each of only 2 lines to do the ID check, while several other agents simply stood around and looked important. Unacceptable!
I only made my flight because I begged people at the front of the line to let me go ahead of them. Â Their politeness allowed me to board the flight with only seconds to spare and just as the doors were closing.
Sadly, my scenario is becoming the norm in airports from coast to coast.
More than 230 million passengers are expected to fly on US airlines this summer, including more than 30 million travelers on international flights, according to Airlines for America, a U.S. airline trade group. That’s a 4% increase from last summer’s all-time high of 222 million passengers.  So, mile long lines stretching through overcrowded corridors with 2-3 hour waits just to go through the x-ray process simply won’t cut it.
Due to TSA delays, travelers are missing their flights at an alarming rate…which means airlines are being backlogged with travelers needing to be moved to an alternate flight…which translates into more crowding in airports because passengers are not being transported in a timely manner to their final destination.
“Due to the length of the lines, tens of thousands of customers have missed their flights and thousands of checked bags have been delayed in TSA resolutions rooms due to low staffing,” American Airlines spokesman Ross Feinstein said. Airline spokesman Casey Norton added that almost 6,800 people traveling on American Airlines missed flights in March due to delays at security checkpoints.
Again, unacceptable.
Stuck in long line because @TSA at @ClevelandHopkin has 6 staff hanging out in closed screening area. Natch. pic.twitter.com/13rOmJsPia
Travel
With increased passenger volume, decreased screener staffing and a security system that slows down every time a screening machine shows potentially prohibited items, American airports are in a travel crisis.  The issue has been exacerbated due to a series of reports last year showing the agency missed weapons and explosives in bags during the screening process.
“It has been a challenging spring with fliers waiting in lines that take more than 60 to 90 minutes to get through security,” said Sharon Pinkerton, Airlines for America’s senior vice president of legislative and regulatory affairs. Â Her words were a mere hint of the full extent of the problem.
The TSA has 42,525 front-line staffers this year, which is a 10% drop since fiscal year 2013. The staffing numbers are what the agency says it can afford based on congressional appropriations. Congress has allowed the Department of Homeland Security (which oversees the TSA) to shift funds to pay existing officers overtime and hire new security officers.  However, that still may not be enough.
To assist, American Airlines has volunteered to provide some of its existing airport staff to help the TSA in areas that don’t involve official security measures. However, airports such as Atlanta Hartsfield have gone so far as to threaten to dump the TSA altogether and hire a private firm to process travelers if the agency can’t get its act together.
Complaints regarding courtesy and processing time surged in March to the highest levels in the past year, according to the Department of Transportation’s monthly Air Travel Consumer Report released Monday.  Further, reports filed over the time it took agents to screen passengers grew more than 10-fold, to 513 this past March from 48 in March 2015. Also, concerns about lack of courtesy by TSA screeners increased more than three-fold, to 1,012 in March from 294 a year ago. Additional complaints regarding the screening process and travelers’ personal property were also at the highest levels recorded in the past year, according to DOT.
Staffing authorized by Congress for the TSA has fallen almost 10% from 47,147 full-time employees in 2013 to 42,525 this year, according to agency data. At the same time, the volume of passengers rose 15% from 643 million to an estimated 740 million this year.
The TSA is trying to get 500 new airport screeners through training and onto the job by the end of June to handle the growing lines and increasing delays. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson says he hopes to have 768 new security officers in place as early as mid-June.
Airlines for America launched the hashtag #iHateTheWait for travelers to share their security wait times, stories and complaints.  With the travel season about to ramp up, something definitely has to change.
.
“We encourage TSA to quickly hire and train new staff to help alleviate this problem, and we also encourage more travelers to enroll in TSA PreCheck as we move into another record-setting travel season.”
#iHateTheWait pic.twitter.com/bU4C0oDBUB— Kate Sparano (@KSparanoRecruit) May 17, 2016
.
I just read this other article about TSA:
American Airlines will spend $4 million to provide contract staff at TSA checkpoints in the airline's major hubs and gateway cities. These staff members will be used in non-screening functions and crowd management so that trained TSA staff can focus solely on screening and security. The airline already spends $17 million each year to help reduce wait times.
In addition, the airline will help the TSA expand its canine screening program so that more passengers can receive expedited screening.
American will also launch an aggressive program to encourage its customers to sign up for TSA's PreCheck program to reduce the number of people in security lines.