TSA "reverse" screening
 

What other airports utilize "reverse" screening?

http://www.heraldandnews.com/news/lo...b2fba7d68.html

Some interesting counter material for the sheep that believe we need to screen passengers on all commercial aircraft to protect the non-flying public on the ground from a 9/11 style attack.

I would think a 25,000 lb turboprop carrying 500+ gallons of fuel is still very much a "flying missile".

Any PAX connecting from an international flight coming into the USA goes through "reverse" screening.

Not quite "any" passenger. Some international passengers go through TSA/CBP screenings at their point of origin, which will allow them to arrive at a "normal" gate without undergoing re-screening here. (This happens frequently with flights originating in Canada, for example.) But this is the exception, not the norm.

Back in the late 70s through the mid-80s, I remember commercial flights on small commuter airlines in California that had no screening of any kind. If you were flying from Santa Maria (SMX) or San Luis Obispo (SLO) to LAX, you would fly from the boonies airport to LAX and land at the old Commuter Terminal. If you landed at one of the regular terminals, they made you go through pre-9/11 screening as you entered the main terminal. Since you were generally connecting to another flight, it wasn't a big deal.

In the TSA era, if I were flying just to Portland from Klamath Falls, I would refuse the reverse screening and they could escort me out of the secure area. (Disclaimer: I have no idea concerning the practicality of flying from Klamath Falls to Portland.) If I were on a flight anywhere else and they wanted to do a reverse screening for whatever contrived reason and if it was my destination airport, you can bet I would decline to be screened.

There have been FTers who have refused reverse after arriving on an international flight without a connection at airports with no direct exit from Customs.

If you are not connecting and you are at a station such as PIT where accessing the street from CBP requires traversing a secure area, you may either go through screening or simply notify TSA that you would prefer an escort.

It may take a bit of time, but at some point an Officer will escort you through the secure area and to the non-secure area. For most people, time is money and even if it's not they want to get going to it's reportedly not often sought.

Although they're calling it "reverse screening" (which I define as automatic screening for all deplaning pax), my impression/assumption from the article is that upon arrival the passengers would directly be taken landside ("bused to the main terminal" in the article), and would then undergo bag-checking and security screening like an originating passenger for their onward journey. So refusal of screening for pax terminating at Portland would not be an issue. But again, just my assumption.

Reverse screening sounds like the right call here. They're talking about 12 departures PER WEEK, so a maximum of 360 passengers per week. Realistically, given the planned departure times, you'd need to have two TSA staff onsite (at least) for about six hours a day during the week, and three on weekends. So, that's at least 72 staff hours per week, plus you'd need relief people most likely, equipment and maintenance, etc. etc. etc. That airport is just too small to justify a TSA presence.

Should be structured like Cape Air is at some smaller airports - arrive, get on plane, go. A number of smaller airports in New Zealand also have no security screening, and it hasn't resulted in mass carnage.

There are a number of tiny airports in Australia with commercial service (say 2 Dash-8s a day, one in and one out). They don't do any security screening at departure, but passengers arriving at (for example) Sydney go through a quick WTMD and x-ray of bags before being allowed into the (sterile side) of the terminal.

...yet.

;)

So the people making this flight are safe enough to fly to another airport without screening but not safe enough to continue onward?

As far as I could tell during my brief visit to NZ it was actually dependent on plane size: jets (A320 and bigger) had screening, turboprops (ATR72 and smaller) didn't. Admittedly I only observed this at Christchurch and Queenstown, but my acquaintances there confirmed most domestic flights don't have screening (and were surprised when the A320 flight did have screening). Furthermore, the screeners didn't seem to care about liquids (I seem to remember taking my cup of coffee through the WTMD), but that could just be my memory failing.

Darn. I was really hoping that "reverse screening" meant that I got to frisk a TSO.

Mike

OMG! What a horrible thought!! Where is the Mr. Yuk emoticon?!?!

As noted elsewhere, it's a function of the size of the plane (also range and speed), and how much damage you could really do with it. A hijacked 30 seater prop presents much less risk to the general public than a hijacked 767that's fully fueled, which weighs 14x as much, and flies 2x as fast.

Which came first: some sort of regulatory exemption from fixed terminal security screening checkpoints (and related screening) for very small commercial flights, or 9/11 and the TSA later in 2011?

The former, I believe (assume you mean TSA later in 2001, not 2011). I'm talking about this in the context of answering Boggie Dog's question. There are two rationales for screening aviation passengers:

1. Safety of other passengers. In this case, a smaller plane means that someone who intends harm has a limited number of people he can hurt. Pax are free to make the decision that they don't want to fly on a plane where pax don't go through security inspection.
2. Safety of the non-flying public. The non-flying public have a safety interest in ensuring that planes aren't turned into weapons. Hence, the general public has grounds to require a reasonable level of security on board aircraft. In this case, a plane with lower speed, size, and range represents less of a danger to the non-flying public, reducing the rationale for spending a given amount of money to secure that plane.

Note that I believe that both interests 1 and 2 can be fully satisfied for all types of commercial aviation through, at most, 9/10/01 levels of security (metal detector and baggage x-ray), particularly with reinforced cockpit doors on aircraft.

So please outline the alternative. Let's stop screening people so you can just bring handguns onto planes.

Perhaps instead of just whining about things you can outline what should be changed and then dig into the counterarguments of those changes.

You believe the threat is so great that arriving pax must be screened before they are let loose in the sterile area.

Meanwhile, you have no problem with an entirely unscreened small airplane landing at a major airport because...??

It's not enough to say that the plane will land away from the terminal and the pax will be bussed to their security screening. That's assuming the pilot of the small aircraft isn't a bad guy who has no intention of landing at a remote parking site. By the time anyone realizes his ill intent, it will be far too late to stop him.

What is your problem? Why do you feel you need to bash others' comments?
Your attitude seems to parallel all that is bad with the TSA. Do you work for them?

First, that's a false dichotomy. Second, you can bring handguns onto planes now - for every 5 guns the TSA intercepts, 95 make it onto planes. Third, completely abandoning screening would be safer than what we have now. The laziness and slovenliness of clerks causes the lines to be processed with glacial slowness, causing a concentration of passengers at the checkpoint. This concentrated mass is much more vulnerable to an attack than the passengers would be if they were dispersed through the terminal. Nothing the TSA does makes any positive contribution aviation security, so jamming up the lines the way they do creates danger with no counterbalancing benefit.

As for things to change:

Smarter clerks
Fire clerks who are too learn or do their jobs
Fire clerks who abuse passengers
End of the Shoe Carnival
End of the War on Water
Übermenschen screening for all
Fire all redundant clerks

A fair point, but I don't object to being served up a softball like that.

TSA needs to stop worrying about pax. Some of the biggest issues that have come up in the last couple years were those who control the planes or have access to secure areas without need for screening. What next TSA screening for Cessna flights?

Good point. TSA has refused to address the insider threat issue and refuses to screen airport workers who have the greatest opportunity to introduce contraband to sterile areas of airports.

Security Theater!

Everything that I am reading says the crash in Egypt was an explosive placed on the plane by an airport worker.

It doesn't really matter how it gets there, the end result will be the same. But what is the sense of screening passengers when those people who have the most opportunity and access go unscreened?

TSA's failure to screen airport workers is criminally negligent.

Correct (except 737s also screened passengers). Also no silly liquid rule, and no need to remove shoes or belt for domestic.

My recollection is that the rule of thumb is "if the flight could theoretically reach Australia, and hence become another country's problem, we'll screen it, but if the airplane's range means the flight's purely domestic, it's our (NZ's) call, and we're fine not screening."

*facedesks* *facedesks* *facedesks* *facedesks* *facedesks* *facedesks*

For Christ's sake, at least TRY to be at least a LITTLE intellectually honest... please?