Atlanta Airport Demands TSA Improvements Within 60 Day
Joe Cortez February 19, 2016
Letter from airport general manager to chief security administrator asks for improvement within 60 days
Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport (ATL) is not happy with how the Transportation Security Administration is performing and is making their dissatisfaction known. Atlanta ABC affiliate WSB-TV reports the airport leadership has put the TSA on notice that if they do not provide more staff, they may be replaced.
In a letter acquired by WSB, airport general manager Miguel Southwell spells out the frustrations to agency director Peter Neffenger. The letter claims the TSA checkpoints are understaffed, which Southwell claims leaves travelers waiting for up to an hour to clear the security checkpoint.
The manager provides additional evidence of his claims from Delta Air Lines, claiming flyers have been complaining to the carrier about checkpoint wait times. Furthermore, as the airport prepares to take on additional traffic in the summer months, they fear the current manpower will not be enough to keep flyers moving.
“In the first quarter of your agency’s current fiscal year that began October 1, 2015, Atlanta’s passenger traffic has jumped 14 percent over the first quarter of the previous fiscal year,” Southwell wrote in the letter. “We know of no staffing plans to service this mammoth growth in demand.”
In closing the letter, Southwell requests a demonstration of the TSA’s commitment to ATL in the form of “some transformational technology or a dramatic shift in the staffing allowances” in the next 60 days. Otherwise, the letter claims the TSA could be replaced by a private “screening partnership program.”
The problems with the TSA at ATL have been widely documents. In March 2015, a report alleged the TSA lost over 1,400 security badges at the airport over two years. In November of the same year, a flyer from ATL claims he was able to accidentally carry a loaded gun past the TSA checkpoint without being flagged.
If ATL moves to a private security firm, they would be the biggest airport in the United States to privatize their screening services. Today, 17 airports have private screening services, with the largest being San Francisco International Airport (SFO). Neither the airport or the TSA have commented publicly about the letter.
[Photo: Getty]
So outed been 60 days. What's happened?
Why do I see TSA staff at SFO?
Perhaps the PANYNJ should write next. At EWR yesterday, went to security at 8:12pm at terminal C. Checkpoint C-3, which is where the only elite and pre-check lanes are in the terminal, was closing - people were still in line to be cleared, but when going down the escalator to security, was shoe'd away along with probably 1 - 2 dozen others trying to clear security. So all the lanes in checkpoint C-3 were closed, as were all the lines in checkpoint C-2. C-1 was the only line open, leaving all UA passengers, with a fairly full complement of the domestic and international last flight's still to go, and no line for premium, elite or pre-check passengers. Everyone in one line. If they are going to decide they can't afford to staff the lanes, then they need to come up with a better process - either tell terminal airline tenants they can't run flights after X pm, add a lane for premium/elite/pre-check at the other open checkpoint as well (which would also lessen the burden for other passengers as many would be out of that line), or if they aren't going to bother to staff 2/3 of the lanes after 8:12pm (don't know where that random time of closing comes from, by the way), they should simply charge less fees on tickets for passengers leaving from X airport after Y pm. Why should I be paying a full compliment of "security" fees if the people running security are going to use only 30% of resources?
This is a long-needed move. Atlanta is the only TSA checkpoint that consistently stresses me out. The wait times are ALWAYS too long. But it is not just the TSA. The Atlanta airport authority needs to build suitable spaces. Funneling 85% of the passengers through a single checkpoint reminds me of a cattle call -- literally passengers ARE treated like cattle in Atlanta!
Are there enough rude people available to fill these vacancies?