Airport securityTSA cuts to the PreCheck program will make security lines longer

Published 17 December 2015

Thanksgiving weekend was a busy one for the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), but holiday travelers passed through airports’ security linesrelatively quickly. In the coming Christmas and New Year traveling period, the cutbacks to the PreCheck lanes as well as the increasing number of passengers using air travel will both contribute to security lines growing longer.

Thanksgiving weekend was a busy one for the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), but holiday travelers passed through airports’ security linesrelatively quickly.

The Wall Street Journal reports that security lines at airports are likely to get longer as a result of cutbacks by the TSA in its PreCheck program.

TSA had already said it anticipates longer lines at security checkpoints after news emerged that TSA officer had failed to detect weapons in an astonishingly high number of instances in which undercover DHS agents smuggled weapons through security checkpoints while testing the effectiveness of airport security systems.

Thanksgiving weekend saw waiting time which was not as high as initially predicted. The number of travelers increased by 6 percent from last year, and some 2.8 million more items needed to be imaged at checkpoints. The number of people who waited longer than twenty minutes, however, was up only between 1 percent to 3 percent compared with last year for the week beginning the Wednesday before Thanksgiving.

“I’m quite happy with how operations turned out,’’ Kelly Hoggan, TSA’s assistant administrator for security operations, told the Journal.

With fears of terrorism and the number of people going through airports both on the rise, the pressure on TSA only increases.

In an effort to speed up the screening and enhance security, TSA launched the PreCheck system. PreCheck allows people to sign up for the program so they can skip the sower security screening at checkpoints. The applicants are usually frequent fliers and are trusted travelers who meet criteria approved by the TSA.

To persuade people to sign up for the PreCheck system, TSA would randomly pick out individuals from the conventional line and take them to the PreCheck lanes so that they can see for themselves how this expedited screening method works.

That system was harshly criticized by DHS Inspector General John Roth, whose undercover agents earlier this year also unearthed the widespread failure of TSA officers to spot weapons being smuggled through airport security checkpoints.

In response, TSA put 50,000 screeners through eight hours of training focusing on spotting hidden weapons. TSA administrator Peter Neffenger, on 12 September, also had the agency stop picking passengers who were not vetted out of line for expedited screening.

In the coming Christmas and New Year traveling period, the cutbacks to the PreCheck lanes as well as the increasing number of passengers using air travel will both contribute to security lines growing longer.