Top U.S. airline security agency, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), expanded its pre-screening security operations at Chicago International O'Hare Airport (ORD) this week, but how much it will improve wait-times remains to be seen.
Pre-screening, known as TSA PreCheck, has been expanded to Delta Airlines and US Airways at O'Hare, the TSA said in a statement, but the program is only for frequent flyer members and members of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Trusted Traveler program.
The program allows eligible travelers to move to a designated line and undergo a slightly less rigorous screening process. Participants may be able to leave their shoes, light outerwear, and belt on, and their laptop in its case.
ORD Federal Security Director, Kathleen Petrowsky, said pre-screening makes traveling more efficient for regular passengers and helps TSA focus on real security threats.
“The vast majority of air travelers present little risk to aviation security,” she said in a statement. “By expediting screening for those we know more about, we can more effectively focus our resources on those we know less about.”
Not everyone is happy about the TSA PreCheck experience, however.
Flyers registered for the pre-screening program have complained that it has not been implemented well, and that delays and lines remain, which was evident this week at O'Hare.
Chicago resident Alexander Williams, a PreCheck member, said he went to security with his boarding pass branded with the pre-screen bar code, but was still forced to wait in the same line as everybody else. “The PreCheck lane, though, was open and there were more than 10 TSA officers ready at that line, doing nothing, but no one was being allowed through,” he told the Chicago Tribune on Tuesday.
TSA administrator John Pistole said the program is working. Over 2 million passengers have benefited from the pre-screening process, he said, with the federal agency aiming to have the program in 35 airports by the end of 2012.
“As TSA PreCheck continues to expand to additional airports and passenger populations, we are seeing exponential growth in participation,” he said in a statement last week.
TSA PreCheck was designed to streamline the cumbersome security process, but some say that the TSA bureaucracy itself is problematic.
“TSA is misguided, overly bureaucratic, and mismanaged,” U.S. Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), chairman of the Subcommittee on National Security, Homeland Defense, and Foreign Operations, said in a statement last year.
Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.), chairman of the House Transportation Committee, would like to see more airports included in the Screening Partnership Program (SPP), which allows airports to opt out of TSA screening altogether and, instead, use certified private screeners, which would come under federal oversight.
Pistole has been resistant to privatized screening, stating that it is more costly than federal screening. He said he could not see “any clear and substantial advantage to expanding the [SPP] program,” but would be open to approving new applications “where a clear and substantial benefit could be realized.”
Late last week, Transportation Security Administration officials announced the preliminary approval of private security screening at Sacramento International Airport.
To date, there are 16 airports operating under the SPP. If Sacramento gains the approval, it will become the third-largest airport, alongside San Francisco International and Kansas City International, with privatized screening operations.
Whether pre-screening programs like PreCheck or privatized security will make any difference to travelers on the ground has yet to be seen.
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