Why Airport Security Lines Have Grown Longer

[question everything]

Huge lines at some airport security checkpoints are creating fear of a summer travel meltdown and growing tension between airlines, airports and a TSA beset by budget issues and a mandate to tighten up security.

Chicago O’Hare has had Monday morning lines snaking through concourses, delaying hundreds of flights. Atlanta has seen peak-time security screening waits of nearly an hour recently because checkpoints are “woefully understaffed,” general manager Miguel Southwell wrote in a blistering Feb. 12 letter to the Transportation Security Administration. TSA and airlines have started advising travelers to arrive up to two hours before a domestic departure and three hours for international flights.

American Airlines says it has had to delay hundreds of flights in January. At Delta’s New York Kennedy terminal, the PreCheck expedited screening line stretched almost out the building door on a recent Friday morning. Airports in Minneapolis, Las Vegas, Denver, Seattle and Miami all say they have seen longer lines at checkpoints over the past two months.

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TSA administrator Peter Neffenger says longer lines are the result of a collision of three changes: reduced staffing from federal budget cuts, a surge in travelers at some airports and efforts to fix significant screening lapses.

Current staffing is about 41,000 screeners, below the congressional cap of 42,500. Even if the agency were staffed up to the cap, it would have 5,600 fewer screeners than in 2011, down 12%. TSA is training 192 new screeners a week to build up staffing to 42,500 by summer.

At the same time, TSA has been intentionally slowing down security screening to tighten it up. This comes after some failures to identify weapons and other mistakes during covert testing by the Department of Homeland Security inspector general were reported last summer.

More..

http://www.wsj.com/articles/why-airport-security-lines-have-grown-longer-1456943591

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Time to send letters to our members of Congress. Let's see if there is something they can accomplish. Washington airports were not mentioned in the story. Surprise surprise..

[UMTerp01]

1. I just experienced this

I just came back from a trip to Puerto Rico. The TSA line at the airport in San Juan was ridiculous. I haven't been in a TSA line that long in FOREVER!!!! Of course, just as I was finally about to get to where the agent checks my boarding pass and ID they opened up another line and brought in some agents. At first I wasn't sure if it was just because its Puerto Rico and they are so laid back with the island mentality and not in a rush to do ANYTHING, but this article makes me think it was in fact because of the TSA.

[Yo_Mama]

2. Well, it turned out that TSA security measures were hideously useless. Congress

probably will have to approve a much higher budget to push passengers through.

A lot of the findings of the Inspector General's audits are classified, but Congressional testimony:
https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/11-3-2015-Committee-Hearing-on-TSA-Roth-DHS-OIG-Testimony.pdf

implies that security needed to be very much tightened, and that expedited security procedures, such as Precheck, were being misused to keep passengers moving through the lines as needed.

[Takket]

3. I dropped off someone for a flight a few days ago

and i couldn't believe how long the security line was! much longer than what i usually see.

[KentuckyWoman]

4. Bullshit.

They have the staff. The X-ray and scanning lines go pretty quick. It's the document line that is the bottleneck. Those people are quite possibly the slowest people ever put on earth. I think they all had lobotomies in order to get the job. When they are so damn slow someone as patient as I am is tempted to scream at them then it's beyond ridiculous.

It's deliberate. I think they have daily contests with each other to see how long they can make the lines and how badly they can piss people off. Watched one document screener go over a person's ticket and ID 4 different times - each time adding a small dot next to info on the ticket. Between each time she would set the pen down. Move the papers around on her podium and then do it again. All the doc screener desks were full - they were just being jackasses.

Sorry for the rant.... I just fucking HATE the TSA.

[Wellstone ruled]

5. As per our Family member involved with this,

it is a top management issue. People doing their jobs are seeing real pressure to ram people through the lines. There are real staffing issues as a result of the flush economy,why work for some nasty Boss for a buck over minimum wage and really lousy benefits. And the major ramp up in disciplinary actions for mostly bogus items. Moral is completely toast as the result of just plain bad Management. Most of the Management of the TSA are ex airline screw ups and the rest is History.

[CincyDem]

6. TSA Lines have grown longer as an incentive to sign up for TSA-Pre

(or whatever that pre-screened program is).

You sign up. Pay $75-100 bucks. Fill out a pretty detailed background check that culminates in a visit to the local TSA office to get finger printed. Assuming all is good, you get a card in about 14-21 days.

Connect your TSA-Pre number to your airline tickets and voila - you get to skip all those nasty lines.

Gov't gets their 100 bucks but, more importantly, the get a whole bunch of information on you that may not have been in the system...like fingerprints.

If the lines are short, there's little incentive. Long lines are a living advertisement for giving up personal information.

[question everything]

7. As the story mentions, at least at jFK, the pre check line is just as long

If more people will sign for it - and I refuse to pay $85 since we fly only once or twice a year - more will be in this line, too.