<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by BoulderFlyer:
My guess is that either a) the TSA layoffs that happened last week were ill timed for the summer travel season, or b) remaining TSA employees are staging a work slowdown to protest the layoffs.</font>
The TSA layoffs weren't ill-timed at all.
TSA officials specifically timed the layoffs to conincide with the busy summer travel season, the theory goes, in order to create an disaster at airports and pressure Congress to bump the agency's funding up by a gazillion dollars or two.* I doubt it will work, but the TSA will certainly make our lives more difficult trying.
* Full credit for this theory goes to Mike Boyd, the oft-quoted aviation consultant who generally makes some very good points once you get past the verbal bluster.