The U.S. Transportation Security Administration (TSA) wants to eliminate airport security at 34% of U.S. airports in a new process to “streamline” security. I’m actually in favor of the idea.
The plan would see the elimination of security at 150 (out of 440) airports in the USA; all those that operate aircraft with 60 seats or fewer. Passengers on these flights would be forced to re-clear security if connecting to another flight. Checked baggage would also be screened at the connecting airport for onward connections.
The TSA concedes this move could bring a “small (non-zero) undesirable increase in risk related to additional adversary opportunity.” Indeed, that is the case.
Perfect security is possible…in an authoritarian state. I’m certainly not comparing the TSA and authoritarianism, but like everything else in life, airport security requires a cost/benefit analysis. Millions of people use mass transit on a daily basis in the USA. About 5.7 million per weekday in New York City alone. A bomb in Grand Central Terminal or Penn Station could kill so many more than a small regional jet.
Yet we have decided to forgo security in these vulnerable places. The burden would simply be too high. Can you imagine screening everyone getting on a train in New York or Chicago? Such screening may well make us more secure, but at an unacceptable cost to our time and dignity.
I say dignity because so much of security is driven by fear and theatre. We see those blue-shirted men and women and suddenly feel safer. We feel better when these agents make squiggly marks on our boarding pass. And when they pat us down, we feel safe, even when they miss 95% of weapons smuggled through.
What Really Makes Us More Secure
Two things really make us more secure. One is re-inforced cockpit doors. A properly re-inforced door (something that did not exist on September 11, 2001) can stop any flight deck attack in the passenger cabin. The second real defense is vigilant passengers. I’m willing to forgo security screening knowing full well every other passenger on my flight also was not screened. That will not make me fearful, but it will make more vigilant. It was passengers, not the TSA, that stopped Richard Reid from detonating a shoe bomb in 2001.
One Mile at a Time takes a different view, conceding that the TSA is mostly security theatre, but adding, “[I]n some ways the theater works, and surely sometimes works as a deterrent.”
I just don’t see the evidence for that.
My Only Concern
My only concern about this policy change is how it will impact the ease of connections while making security lines even longer at major hubs. We’re talking about 10,000 passengers per day, so perhaps the damage would be limited, but I’d be annoyed having to schedule in a longer connection than necessary in order to clear security at my connecting airport.
CONCLUSION
The proposal would only save $150million/year, which is nothing considering the overall bloated TSA budget. Perhaps it is not worthwhile…but it is a discussion worth having.
Airport security in the United States remains theatre and I would like to see that change in a meaningful way.
> Read More: This is Why the TSA Federal Air Marshal Service Needs to End
image: TSA
As someone who often takes a small airport connector to a hub, PLEASE GOD NOOOO!!!! Connections are hard enough to make as it is, this will make it 10x worse. Also through in the fact that quick tsa line is one of the few perks of a small airport.
It’s a stupid idea if connecting traffic has to screen. I’d rather seem them relax the rules on liquids, shoes, computers, snacks, etc. That is much less risk in the big picture. The other area I’d like to see is focusing on or profiling higher risk flights and adding a UK style interview process at the TSA entry desk. Just asking a few random questions to tip off the security screening to nervous flyers.
“My only concern about this policy change is how it will impact the ease of connections while making security lines even longer at major hubs.”
While I don’t think this would materially affect security lines at large hub airports, this proposal is a bad idea due to the first part of your sentence – connections. For one, this would significantly add to MCT if you have to fly from small airports like ACT, TYR, etc. through DFW before proceeding somewhere else. Considering these small commuter flights are usually the first to take a delay in the event of bad weather or ATC control, this seems like a recipe for misconnections.
Second, I can’t think of how you’d be able to do this logistically without forcing all traffic from non-screened airports to use remote stands and bus passengers to the main terminal area, something most large hub airports aren’t even set up to do. It’s one thing at an airport like DFW, which has checkpoints at each terminal. Can you imagine the additional time involved at an airport with a central chokepoint system like ATL or DEN, though?
Here Here!!!!
@ Matthew — This would turn into a collosal waste of money l9ng-term. Tear down, discard equipment, end leases early, then start over buying out leases, rebuilding, and replacing equipment. Oh, plus the near-certain security incidents brought on by this asinine policy. Best thing for goverenment to do is nothing, except rem9ve DJT ASAP.
It would be more efficient to just let the small airports run the security screening with their own staff. Those staff could perform other duties when there are no flights. THe TSA could reduce headcount and the airports would be able to use their staff more efficiently…
I agree with Sherif. In my tiny little airport I can show up 45 minutes before departure, be airborne quickly, and not have to pay airport parking charges. If I have to waste a lot of time arriving at a hub to go through security I’m going to have to factor that in an connection time.
This idea is not seriously being considered, is it? Delta only flies to ATL from here. So I land(usually a few minutes late) then have to clear a single massive chokepoint to connect back to(usually) the D concourse to board another CRJ at ATL.
As an aside, we get ONE single aircraft per day that exceeds 60 seats. Might that take (hopefully) us out of the running for this security “enhancement”?
Uhhh, what exactly is that TSA agent doing in the picture?!?!
And that picture is directly from the TSA!
I just came to post the exact same thing!! It is ALL SORTS OF WRONG omggg
Hey, I don’t blame the TSA agent at all. I’d like to check out what that guy as down there as well!!
Lmao
Please change
The proposal would only save $150million/year,
to
The proposal would save only $150 million per year,
People with either have to build in a minimum connecting time of 2-3 hours or we will see many people misconnecting at the hubs – this leads to — arguments and debating at the TSA checkpoints = more people being pulled out of line by TSA roughnecks for “objecting” or getting “upset” in front of them. This in turn affects everyone else in the line – more domino buildup and late arrivals at gates or missing flights altogether by those other passengers. The burden will also be on ticket counter and gate agents to fix and change people’s connections (if there even are any or any available) while they are in a heightened state of anger and despair…..more arguments and debating – and rightly so. Now throw in elderly people, families with children, and every other mix to add to the angst.
Wow, airlines need to really object to this nonsense, put their foot down or they and their passengers will be in a world of trouble. Saving $150 million ???…….the airlines will be losing many more millions than that to fix the misconnects and assuaging angry customers. For what ????? – START.PROFILING.AT.THE.SMALLER.AIRPORTS.
Australia does exactly this already and there are no stories of planes being blown out of the sky there. There are no huge queues at transit airports because they are set up to cope with demand – every airport knows how many people are going to pass through every hour of every day.
Security needs to be focussed and intelligent and the one size fits all approach suits no one. It’s designed to look like things are being done to keep the worried worried and it’s a waste of time for the vast majority.
The TSA serves no purpose. Nothing it does can be justified.