As airport lines grow, TSA is under siege

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is under siege from all sides. It seems not a day goes by without a headline about people missing their flights due to long security lines, how few travelers are enrolled in TSA’s PreCheck program or the nightmare scenario everyone should expect this summer, when a record 231 million U.S. air passengers are expected to fly.

Last week, the U.S. Travel Association added to the heat, asserting that the long lines would take a $4 billion bite out of the economy this summer, with more than 20% of Americans who participated in a survey saying they would delay or cancel their air travel plans to avoid the gridlock.

With all fingers pointing directly at the TSA, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform said the agency’s head of security operations was fired on May 24.

But members of the travel industry said last week that the TSA, while it has become the national face of the problem, is not solely to blame.

Several in the industry say it’s simply a matter of the agency being underfunded and not able to react quickly to situations like the huge increase in travelers amid heightened security levels, because it needs congressional approval to increase its budget or to even approve overtime.

It took mounting public furor and nonstop media coverage of the long TSA lines to finally open the books.

In early May, the Senate and House both approved a TSA request to shift $34 million in funding on its ledger to hire 768 officers and pay overtime for more than 40,000 others. Last week, a Senate Appropriations subcommittee passed a Department of Homeland Security funding bill that increased the TSA’s budget by $215 million, but the full Senate and the House have yet to act on it, and no vote has been scheduled.

TSA administrator Peter Neffenger “has a very hard job, given the resources he has and the fact that they’ve had years in which they’d had no budget for hiring,” said Kevin Burke, CEO of Airports Council International-North America (ACI-NA).

Part of what hamstrings the TSA, said trade groups such as the ACI-NA and Airlines for America (A4A), is that Congress is diverting the money it collects from passengers to reduce the budget deficit.

Since 2013, Congress has diverted to nonsecurity-related costs about one-third of the so-called 9/11 Passenger Security Fee, a $5.60 levy per one-way ticket that carriers remit to the TSA.

“That decision has come home to roost,” A4A CEO Nicholas Calio wrote in a statement. “If Congress wanted to take constructive and well-justified action, it would immediately pass legislation putting that money, paid by airline passengers, where it belongs.”

Last year alone, according to the ACI-NA, passengers paid $3.5 billion in 9/11 security fees, of which $1.19 billion was diverted.

The ACI-NA and the A4A are both calling on Congress to return that money to the TSA so that it can be used for the purpose it’s collected for, which is “to provide civil aviation security,” said Christopher Bidwell, ACI-NA’s vice president for security.

“If it weren’t diverted it would go right to the TSA as intended to pay for officers or technology to increase efficiency,” he said. “The TSA is handicapped without that money.”

People are also pointing fingers at the airlines, which last week pledged to spend $4 million each on additional support to help the TSA with nonsecurity functions, but are not willing to eliminate their checked baggage fees, which the TSA said results in clogged security lines as people carry on more bags than ever before.

Sens. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) earlier this month sent letters to the 12 major U.S. airlines, urging them to stop charging bag fees this summer to help speed up TSA security screening, a request echoed by Homeland Security secretary Jeh Johnson.

“It’s time for the airlines to stop prioritizing their bottom line over their customers standing in line,” Markey and Blumenthal said in a statement. “The airlines must recognize the role that their bag fees play in increasing wait times. Airlines should suspend their bag fees during this busy summer travel season.”

Speaking for the airlines, the A4A argued that baggage fees have been an industry standard since 2008, and the long security lines are a much more recent phenomenon.

“Not only does the data not support a causal relationship between recent lines and baggage fees, it would be illegal for airlines to jointly agree on any pricing policy, including bag fees,” the A4A said.

The TSA also went on a public relations offensive this month, including hosting demonstrations at airports showing ways that passengers significantly exacerbated wait times at security checkpoints, by bringing through contraband and forgetting to remove their belts or items in their pockets.

“Individuals who come to the TSA checkpoint unprepared for a trip can have a negative impact on the time it takes to complete the screening process,” the TSA said.

On the other hand, the TSA clearly owns much of the blame for its current situation.

Its own investigation last year revealed security failures at many of the nation’s busiest airports, where undercover investigators smuggled weapons through checkpoints in 95% of trials, causing the agency to tighten its screening methods and stop procedures that helped facilitate faster flow of passengers. For example, it stopped the practice of allowing TSA officers to use their judgment in moving certain people, such as families with children or the elderly, to PreCheck lines.

Moreover, the TSA had projected that 25 million people would be signed up for PreCheck by now, so the TSA and Congress have cut the number of screeners by about 15% since 2012. As of this spring, only about 7.4 million passengers had signed up.

The TSA has promised to increase both human and canine security staffing at airports this summer. A recent experience involving this publication illustrates some of the TSA’s challenges when it comes to solving problems quickly: A Travel Weekly reporter sailed through the regular security line at Miami Airport last week, where passengers were not asked to remove shoes, belts or laptops from their bags.

It turned out that a TSA canine was doing the screening, allowing for the expedited security process. According to the TSA, there are currently 900 canine teams that can screen up to 5,000 passengers per day, and they are “extremely reliable,” with find rates better than 93%. 

“We would like to expand our canine program,” a TSA spokesman said. “We are just waiting on more funding.”

Since it takes about nine months to train the dogs, it will be a while before they can help alleviate a huge number of lines, so the TSA is now deploying them strategically.

In the meantime, the ACI-NA’s Bidwell said, “The request to reprogram the $34 million in funding to increase the number of security officers is good and will help, but more is needed to not only address the issues now but prepare for future years.”