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As the summer air-travel season gets under way, airports, airlines and the Transportation Security Administration are scrambling to cut security-line waits that have grown so long that many passengers are missing their flights.
Jeh Johnson, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, which runs the TSA, said at a news conference Friday that the government, working with airlines and airports, has developed a plan “that will keep passengers moving” and safe.
The TSA has faced withering criticism in recent months over the spiking wait times—some of up to nearly two hours—which are the most severe in recent memory.
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Aside from the previously announced addition of 768 TSA screening agents to the current workforce of 42,500, the provision of $34 million to augment overtime, and the relocation of more bomb-sniffing dogs to the busiest airports, Mr. Johnson said the TSA is turning to airlines for help in performing some non-security TSA tasks.
The TSA is “doubling down” on research into better ways to channel passengers through airports and seeks to boost enrollment in PreCheck, the paid expedited screening program the TSA runs for travelers who have been vetted, Mr. Johnson said.
The union that represents the screeners last week urged Congress to pass emergency-funding legislation to hire 6,000 more screeners, saying the agency’s plans don’t address chronic understaffing. In fiscal 2013, the TSA had more than 47,000 screeners.
Individual airlines, and in some cases airports, are taking the unusual step of lending staffers and hiring contract workers to assist the TSA this summer with non-security duties such as restocking the plastic bins at screening points, advising passengers to remove their shoes and take laptops out of their bags, and manning the security exit points. These moves ostensibly would free up more TSA screeners to do security checks.
Some airlines, however, believe the challenges aren’t going to abate if air travel continues to grow faster than forecast. The TSA said it expected a 2% growth in passenger volume when it was preparing its 2014 budget, and now is expecting 7% growth.
The agency’s budget in the 2012 fiscal year was $7.8 billion. This year it is $7.4 billion, most of which comes from federal appropriations and a little from the so-called 9/11 security fee on airplane tickets.
“We need to look at solutions that are going to have significant impact, not stop-gap measure this summer,” said Jason Van Eaton, vice president of governmental affairs at Southwest Airlines Co.
The nation’s top hauler of domestic travelers already has added temporary workers at airports in Salt Lake City and Oakland, Calif., and is preparing to do the same in Baltimore, Chicago, Atlanta and Orlando, Mr. Van Eaton said, declining to provide numbers.
“It’s an extraordinary step we’re taking,” he said. But with maximum line waits reaching an hour in Chicago and Orlando, for instance, instead of 20 minutes, he said some travelers are missing their flights.
American Airlines Group Inc., the nation’s No. 1 airline by traffic, estimates that “tens of thousands” of passengers have missed their flights so far this year due to long wait times for screening. In the week of March 14 alone, 6,800 American passengers missed their planes, an American spokesman said. “Our customers are very upset.”
Last Thursday, the spokesman said, the wait time for American passengers at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport was up to one hour and 45 minutes at the peak. On Friday morning, an American plane headed to Orlando from Dallas left without 27 passengers stalled in security lines.
Joe Kefauver, a communications executive who lives in Orlando, said what should have been a two-minute screening wait for a recent flight to Boston stretched into a 45-minute ordeal because there weren’t enough screeners. He didn’t miss his flight, but “it was close,” he said.
American said it is adding contract personnel for the summer at some large airports. United Continental Holdings Inc. also said it is ramping up staffing at several airports, including its hubs in Chicago and Newark, N.J. Delta Air Lines Inc. is expanding staff as well, and is working with industrial engineers and the TSA on queue design. The carriers wouldn’t say how many workers would be added.
Some airports also are doing their part, funding the assistance from their own budgets. Seattle-Tacoma International Airport said it has hired 90 workers through September to help the TSA with non-security tasks, a spokesman said. “We’re willing to do this through the summer,” he said. “But we’re not willing to take this on long-term.”
The TSA closely guards wait times, which vary by time of day and day of week. A person familiar with the matter estimated, though, that at the top 20 U.S. airports, wait times are up 20% on average in the October 2015-May 2016 period compared with a year ago.
Some of the largest airport operators are putting pressure on the government to quicken screening. In a letter to the TSA earlier this month, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which runs the three big New York-area airports, said the maximum wait time at John F. Kennedy International Airport for the month ending April 15 was 55 minutes, up from 30 minutes in the prior-year month.
Like Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport a few months ago, the Port Authority said it might explore joining a TSA-run program that allows for the use of private screeners.
Miami International Airport in early May received assurances the TSA would add “dozens” of screening officers at that airport for the summer, an airport spokesman said. It also arranged to have one checkpoint in Concourse D exclusively dedicated to PreCheck passengers.
“After the summer months, we will evaluate the performance of these initiatives and determine if additional measures, such as TSA-authorized outsourcing, are necessary,” he said.
The TSA’s Screening Partnership Program is in place at 22 of the nation’s 450 airports where travelers are screened. But those contracts, which are awarded by the TSA to private screening companies, can’t cost more than what the TSA itself incurs, said Carolyn Dorgham, the program director, and the private screeners must follow all TSA protocols.
Following weeks of negative passenger commentary and round-the-clock media attention, the TSA suffered another embarrassment Thursday when the equipment that scans checked luggage at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport broke down.
As a result, said Southwest’s Mr. Van Eaton, about 4,000 suitcases missed their flights. The luggage was moved to a guarded parking lot where canine teams began making the rounds.
Ultimately, Southwest trucked much of its portion of the luggage to Las Vegas, where it was screened and put on flights to meet passengers, a days-long process. Other carriers trucked bags to Tucson and San Diego for screening.
The TSA said the local hardware failure in Phoenix was fixed and the system was working normally on Friday.
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