Originally Posted by
Adam1222
I'm not sure what you're basing these suppositions on, but at many airports these positions are unionized, highly paid, and indeed require specific certifications.
The US airline security contractors that had been hitting me with questions on my Europe-US flights prior to mid-March 2020 were not highly paid — not even in the highest labor cost and most unionized countries in the EU/Schengen area. And they still are not this year. There is even some “social dumping” involved in the security contractors’ employment practices in these parts. Being an airline FA for a legacy major in these parts would be more “lucrative” than being a US airline security contractor’s “screener” for the same flights.
The airline contract ground handling agencies’ check-in staff used by airlines at EU/Schengen area outstations in the high-labor cost+high union density countries are also better paid on average than the airline contract security screeners, but there are various reasons for that and I wouldn’t take that to mean they are any better or worse with questioning passengers than the “professionals” employed by the airline security contractors.