TSA: Airport security lines moving faster

Encouraging news out of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA): the agency says passenger flow through its security lines at airports is improving.

Better scanning technologies, clearer procedures at checkpoints, and, some would say, cutbacks in air travel due to the lagging economy — all are making for a more palatable experience for passengers in the TSA security lanes. The agency says that passengers traveling domestically rarely spend more than ten minutes going through security. Not long ago, that figure was more like two hours, with airlines cautioning passengers to arrive at the airport three hours prior to departure, and even earlier for international travel.

Ohmygove’s  Mark Malseed writes that new X-ray scanners that view baggage from multiple angles have reduced the number of hand searches by TSA personnel. Millimeter-wave machines, which have caused controversy over the rather graphic pictures it produces of passengers — one congressman called it “TSA porn” — have nonetheless cut down on manual pat-downs. There is also the simple fact that many more Americans have now flown under the TSA rules at least once, so are familiar with the checkpoint process.

Malseed writes that TSA insists that passengers are safer with the multi-layered security setup, which in addition to passenger and baggage screening includes comparisons of flight manifests to terrorist watchlists, reinforced cockpit doors, and armed air marshals. “Each one of these layers alone is capable of stopping a terrorist attack,” TSA spokeswoman Sari Koshetz told the Chicago Tribune.