I don't know if it was in this thread or another thread where someone responded that they had seen TSA given these "timers" only to people in a short PreCheck line and not to anyone in the long, long standard screening lines. Typical TSA to fudge results.

That's rich, considering she was asleep at the wheel (she 'saw nothing, said nothing') when her crony at TSA was sexually harassing men in the office.

CBS News:

I've been watching the TSO jobs listings at USAJOBS.GOV. There are relatively few TSO jobs being listed and very few openings at major airports. If TSA has a screener shortage of allowed screener numbers then why so few solicitations?

It is not unusual for government agencies to implement hiring freezes, when no new hirings take place, as cost saving measures due to budgetary concerns. Whether that's the case here, I have no idea.

A better question is, if the screening force is down 15%, why haven't non-essential people like BDOs been re-assigned to front-line screening duty?

And on a related note, why hasn't TSA invested in the simple, automated rail systems used in other countries to push tubs back to the beginning of the line, instead of scheduling at least one TSO per lane to do that stupidly simple job? That's one place where throwing money at the problem really could have some benefit.

Of course, had they continued Managed Inclusion II, which was an unqualified success (i.e. millions were screened under this program and not one - NOT ONE - terr'rist made it onto a plane and not one plane fell from the sky), this would be a moot point. The lines would move faster, fewer people would be needed to conduct screening, and the whole setup would be more efficient and effective. But no, that wouldn't sit well with the inefficiency experts in Washington.

See TWA884's link above.

Congress put a cap on the number of screeners. Neffenger is trying to fire up public pressure to get Congress to give him $$$ to hire more screeners. Besides, they've got to justify the academy, so you've got an entire classload of screeners off work at the academy all the time. SEA brought this up and Neffenger did a complete reversal and agreed that local training would be OK for SEA. (So much for sending everyone to the academy because there was supposedly too much consistent inconsistency in local training).

At one airport recently, there was a sign urging pax to pressure Congress to allow more screeners to be hired.

Neffenger is not willing to ask his LTSOs and STSOs to do something besides stand around. I have to wonder if private screening firms would be obligated to maintain the same ration of non-working: working staff.

BTW...I also wonder just what kind of commitment Neffenger has made to this job. Considering he may very well be replaced when the next POTUS takes office, it's possible he's just hanging out, hoping for a sweet pre-retirement bonus (I imagine he would get a huge one if there is even a tiny improvement in test scores) and possible connections with whoever will be selling TSA its next expensive wonder-toy.

According to the video report in this NBC News item (@ ~ 0:45), Sea-Tac has hired private contractors to handle the bins and guide passengers, and free the TSO's to focus on screening passengers and x-raying bags.

IIRC, they hired 19 people. That should free up enough bodies to open at least one more checkpoint from time to time, assuming that's what they want to do, or at least add a couple more TDCs.

I'd imagine that this won't sit well with the TSA, especially if it works.


Gotta love this one:

From the former TSA press secretary who probably lost his job by participating here at FT.

It will free up 19 TSA bodies, but unfortunately, there's nothing that says those 19 TSA bodies will actually be put to work reducing checkpoint congestion.

They'll probably put them to work doing gate checks.

It's going to get uglier, not better, in the short term. Neffy's boxed himself in a corner. His excuse for the sudden surge in lines is that TSA is too under-staffed to perform its mission. Unfortunately, even if Congress authorized the hiring of another 500 screeners today, it will be months before they are trained - first there is time at the academy (waiting room only), then there is the OJT. IIRC, 4-6 months before a screener is fully trained. In the meantime, they're on the payroll but can't do much besides stack tubs and stand around - tasks that aren't going to improve the situation.

In short, Neffy's deliberately manufactured the perfect storm: huge crowds, long lines, and no possibility of relief for months to come even if he gets all the $$ he wants for more (working) screeners and dogs.

It's also clear that some airports are choosing to deliberately manipulate the situation. There's no other reason for the regular, almost deliberate closing of Pre lanes during peak periods. Qualified Pre customers are being forced to stand in regular lines and given limited Pre (keep shoes on) - even though TSA claims Pre can process people at twice the rate of the regular lines.

I think Pistole may have wanted to return to something closer to pre-9/11 screening as the default, but instead of just making the change, he tried to turn it into a revenue-generator.

Even if Congress authorized the hiring of 500 screeners today, that would mean only a smidgen of over 1 screener for each TSA airport in the country. What good is that going to do? Or are they going to hire 15 new screeners for each of the airports suffering the biggest backups?*

The lines would still be long and slow because Neffenger has slowed down the screening process in an attempt to make up for the big fail of last year.

As for the airports manipulating the lines, I question that because it is apparently AskTSA that manages the lines at each airport. How? Don't ask me how they do that when they can't manage to answer questions correctly.

*It has occurred to me recently that perhaps the "training academy" is a subtle way to weed out undesirable potential employees who are most likely to give the TSA problems. I am sure that there are many people who can pass the initial tests but for a variety of reasons are unable to be away from home for 2 weeks of training.

Even if Hillary or Bernie win, he will be gone unless he completely transforms the TSA. Even within the same party, the new administration, by definition, can always do it better than the last guys.

It's not too long ago that he would have been defending Neffy and the long lines.

The last time I set foot in an airport was in late February. Did these long lines grow gradually or simply appeared overnight?

Concerning <Pistole>'s motivations, I'd be willing to bet that he understood that the USG went way overboard with screening and figured that most of the American people felt the same way and would gladly pay the $85 to go back to the good ol' days. The problem is that most of us disgusted at the TSA have either cut way back on flying or don't fly at all anymore. Frequent overseas flyers sign up for GE and get ExtortionCheck in the process. If they fly on foreign-flag iron, they don't get ExtortionCheck anyway, so there's no benefit joining. Then, the TSA was embarassed into giving ExtortionCheck for free to active duty military and DoD civilians. That leaves only the frequent mostly-domestic flyers. That's a relatively small target audience.

Then, there's the spin problem. How would the TSA ever go back to the old days and spin it to Congress as a good thing? They would have to admit they overdid it. You would have the flight attendant's union up in arms just like they were about pocket knives. And, everybody is making way too much money because we're afraid of our own shadows.

I think we're in for an ugly couple years. I don't think Neffy has a clue and I think he's just running out the clock, focusing on improving test scores at all costs so he'll get a particularly large send-off bonus, leaving the mess to his successor to deal with.

The whole point of the boondoggle 'academy' was to standardize allegedly inconsistent local training. Now he's waived that for SEA and told the WA that local training will be OK there.

???

Someone's been doing a bit of rather obvious wordsmithing at TSA lately. When talking about Pre, everything is 'may' - pax 'may' received expedited screening. That's a big switch from suggesting that for $85, pax will get expedited screening, subject to infrequent randoms. And when is the last time you heard/read 'consistent inconsistency'? Now it's differing 'interpretations' of the rules - each TSO interprets the rules as s/he sees fit and that keeps the bad guys (and all the innocent people just trying to travel) on their toes and stressed.

The long lines at TSA Checkpoints have been directed by TSA Administrator Neffenger. it is clear from his testimony to Congress that screening through-put speed was not a high priority. Adding more screeners will not necessarily improve passenger waits.

https://www.dhs.gov/news/2016/03/01/...appropriations