The Transportation Security Administration announced Monday it is adding more than 100 agents at the airport by next month.
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The new workers will help with costumer-service duties, such as telling passengers to remove their electronics from bags or to take off their shoes. Federal auditors have concluded essentially that those officers do little in terms of reducing risks, so let’s put them to work reducing congestion and serving the travelling public. Airlines have been asking travelers to arrive at the airport at least two hours before scheduled domestic flights.
But long lines are likely to persist, Neffenger said on Friday. A Seattle traveler reported standing in line there for two hours on a recent trip.
The week before, a technical problem with the TSA’s baggage-screening system at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport forced passengers to leave behind more than 3,000 pieces of luggage. “We need to move America toward TSA Pre-Check”.
PreCheck allows passengers access to an expedited security screening process once they have passed a background check and filed the appropriate paperwork.
Others are considering such hires, too.
There has been an increase in travelers at Sea-Tac each of the last five years, and officials expect more than 42 million passengers this year.
Neffenger said, “I’m very confident that we have dramatically improved our ability to do that and we focused specifically on the types of devices that have both been talked about in the news and those things that we see coming”.
This summer’s travel season is expected to be one of the busiest ever. The Port Authority says that the issue is similar at LaGuardia Airport and Newark.
The agency called the funds “a good down payment” but said they needed additional resources to ease the screener shortage.
Passengers make their way through a terminal at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago, Illinois, September 26, 2014. The agency plans to hire nearly 800 more staffers nationwide.
Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Sen. They say that would lead to fewer carry-on bags for TSA to screen. It said it would also increase the hours worked by front-line officers, including increased overtime and increased part-time hours.
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That same idea was floated in a letter sent last week to a dozen major US airlines by Senators Richard Blumenthal and Edward Markey, who wrote that, “Without charges for checking their bags, passengers will be far less likely to carry them on, which snarls screening checkpoints and slows the inspection process”. Also, the airline industry has launched a social-media campaign, “I Hate the Wait”, for travelers to air grievances.
