Changes to screening in light of recent failures
 

http://tinyurl.com/o5a3p4q

No shite.

FliesWay2Much was correct when he said passengers were going to pay for the TSA's failings.

Ain't gonna happen, Neffenger.

TSA can't fix the screening problems as long as the employee problem isn't addressed and they screen for non-threats.

Removal of shoes, belts, and light outerwear is a procedure looking for a problem that doesn't exist. WBI is another bottleneck that should only be used for secondary screening and as GAO has recommended the BDO program should be ended and those screeners either returned to screening duties are discharged as excess.

Neffenger might make a difference but I won't be holding my breath for anything that improves the passengers experience when encountering TSA.

Neffenger has one focus - to improve results on the Red Team tests.

One of the problems with TSA's self-styled 'consistent inconsistency' approach is that it affects TSOs and their performance as well as passengers.

It's one thing if the pax doesn't know the rules from day to day; s/he gets barked at and gets belongings confiscated. When a TSO knows the rules are whatever s/he decides, is it really surprising when the outcomes are unpredictable?

Neffenger might have had greater success if he had simply insisted on consistent attention to the agency's mission instead of diverting attention to drugs and large sums of cash and breast prostheses and expense perfume bottles and cool light sabers. Instead, he's choosing to follow in his predecessor's footsteps, believing that an unpleasant checkpoint experience is an effective checkpoint experience.

The fact that he hasn't shut down employee cellphone use at the checkpoint says volumes. Does this guy ever fly? Does he actually observe what's going on?

Chollie, you're pointing out what I see as an employee problem. Poorly trained, improperly supervised staff making it up as they go is a serious issue that TSA needs to tackle. Allowing this only makes the public less cooperative and that makes the work of TSA all the more difficult.

I don't think anyone can turn around TSA as long as the current 2nd level leadership is in place.

I wonder how much airport authorities paid to modify their terminals to install all the Extortion-Check areas in the first place? How much more are we paying them in increased parking fees and retail prices to pay for all of it? I guess money was no object in the effort to silence the TSA's most vocal critics.

Two comments.

1) Forcing taxpayers to pay bloated prices to the same people who apparently failed to train TSOs properly in the first place is not the answer. Will this take place at the TSA Academy?

What other job (civilian or government) responds to massive employee failure by giving those employees paid time off from regular duties to attend 're-training'?

2) Yes, there are problem employees, but the majority are higher rank than TSO. LTSOs, STSOs, and suits all stand around the checkpoints jacking their jaws and playing with their cellphones. TSOs still have no central source to turn to for questions about whether or not an item is to be permitted or how it is to be handled. Massively over-staffed checkpoints (compared to much of the rest of the world) and longer lines (again, compared to much of the rest of the world).

Behind every under-performing or flat-out corrupt TSO, there is a hierarchy of AWOL or corrupt LTSOs, STSOs, and suits enabling that employee's behavior.

Meanwhile, Neffenger plans to increase enrollment in Pre by 1) diminishing the availability and extent of the Pre experience for those who pay for it and 2) increasing the length and invasiveness of the checkpoint procedures for pax.

:rolleyes:

I went through TSA at DFW terminal D last week. The airline had gifted me with Pre Check but that service wasn't offered at that checkpoint so it was Pre Check lite. WTMD and x-ray. Quick and easy the way it should be but often is not. I can see first hand that TSA can run checkpoints well so the focus should be on demanding that level of performance 100% of the time. That goes back to faulty training, supervision, and leadership. I don't give Neffenger a snowballs chance in hades to fix that problem.

Only one thing will fix the TSA. Disbanding it and starting over.
With screeners getting trained by their counterparts in Japan, Singapore and Hong Kong.

Not much if at all. The equipment was usually already there in the first place, it just took modifying some settings on said equipment.

There's been parking rate increases at BOS, but I know the obvious cause of that, so Massport can pay for the terminal extensions to fit the ever increasing international presence and post-security connectors that have been built or are being built.

Yes, a checkpoint or two has been built or expanded in that time, but that's pretty much it.

You're overlooking the cost of physical barriers, electrical installations, potentially some HVAC and structural modifications such as floor loading, additional lighting, fire suppression systems, etc, let alone the operational cost of all of this. There is also some additional low-voltage wiring costs fof the networks that need to be extended into the new areas for the beeper machines, TSA clerk computers, telephones and other comm, etc.

Must be New Math...

Yes, however, all of that was already in place at BOS. It's not like new checkpoints were being built from scratch for PreCheck. At BOS, it was simple equipment reprogramming and off they went.

Can I say the same for other airports, no. But I have a feeling that the majority of airports took a standard lane, reprogrammed the equipment settings and voila, PreCheck lane.

Yes, every airport had backscatter x-ray machines and remote viewing rooms plus all the required cabling before TSA. Those spaces surely came from somewhere even though they are gone now not to mention the extreme cost to taxpayers that TSA forced on taxpayers while never complying with the law and continues to operate MMW WBI outside the law even today.

"Reprogrammed the equipment settings", interesting remark. So Pre Chech WTMD's are set differently than regular TSA screening lanes, why would that be?

From The Hill:

Currently, only 4 percent of travelers are PreCheck members.

http://thehill.com/policy/transporta...rport-security

That's far, far fewer that I had guessed. He's never going to get the "millions more" that Pistole said last fall were needed in order for PreCheck to work as envisioned.

I wonder if that's 4% of the population (so someone flying 2x a week gets counted as 1, as does someone flying 1x or 0x per year), or 4% of the checkpoint transits (i.e. weighted by frequency of flying).

I'd also be very surprised if Precheck was only 4% of total trips through security.