it was
 

The united terminal at ORD. Giving United flyers a heads up. And frankly I do think that United and the airlines should do something about this. It's not okay and going to wreck their operations and drive away customers. Will not make it a nice summer for anybody.

This complaint is common across all airlines, across all airports in recent months. There have been news stories of issues at ATL, SEA, MSP, EWR, PHX, etc. It's not a United issue. It's a TSA incompetence issue.

I got to Ord at 6pm for my 7pm flight to lax today. Got through pre-check in 5 minutes.

Amazing how different an hour makes!

Please followed this in the Practical Travel Safety and Security forum. That is the forum for TSA matters.

l'etoile
UA moderator

From my boarding pass:

Temporary closure: Security Checkpoint 3, Terminal 1 at Chicago OHare
Priority security lines for MileagePlus® Premier® members, Star Alliance Gold members, military personnel, customers with disabilities requiring additional assistance and employees have moved to Security Checkpoint 2. If you are departing from Chicago, please allow extra time for security processing.

This certainly exacerbates the issue. And believe me, I'm not trying to make any excuses for the TSA's abhorrent behavior.

“The freed-up funds will be put toward accelerating the hiring and training of 768 security officers..."

As reported in the NYT last week:

Catching a Flight? Budget Hours, Not Minutes, for Security (NYT, 2016 May 02)

Specifically mentioned in the article are ORD T3 (AA), PHL, CLT, ATL, MIA, NYC (presumably, all of them), SEA, and DEN. Or, basically, all hub airports on all carriers.

Methinks I will be putting all that zen/yoga/yin-yang positivity practice to some serious test this summer.

Incompetence? Or a deliberate attempt to extort more money out of Congress?

Something's gotta give. 07:00 at DEN today saw the south checkpoint PreCheck line snake all the way back to baggage claim - had to be 30-45 mins. The regular line was at least an hour or more.

I had CLEAR so I was thru in 5 mins. TSA is going to have to do something this summer or there's going to be full scale riots.

So the airport hires a worker to perform the TDC function so TSA can free up an employee to do something more useful - but TSA decides that the now-unnecessary TDC has nothing better to do than stand around doing nothing while an airport employee does his/her job duties?

:rolleyes:

It's gone beyond shameful to downright outrageous. I've seen reports of deliberate work stoppages - ie, checkpoint cleared and shutdown while the TSOs staffing it continue to stand around for 20 minutes. I've seen reports of the xray operators sitting back and taking a break while the belt stops.

Congress told Neffy he could have more money. He already had more than enough, but instead of spending it on working TSOs, he spent it on an 'academy' and BDOs and now-missing Ipads and other shiny toys. What the heck does he want now? It's clear that Pre is a fraud, because FSDs across the nation continue to refuse to provide the service.

This is part of something bigger. In recent weeks, TSA has taken to telling people that it neither manages nor endorses priority lanes. TSA is trying to get the premier lanes shut down permanently.

I hate to say it, but I think TSA wants to provoke a riot or a major disturbance.

They've got their 'academy' and they've got their money from Congress. There's something else going on now.

ATL is now advising passengers to arrive 3 hours before their flight, per the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

Apparently TSA has decided to close 1 of 3 checkpoints in this terminal to redesign it to test a faster way to process.

Here's an idea: get rid of ineffective equipment that is slow, creates security holes, and makes us all less safe by creating a perfect environment for a Brussels-style bombing. It would appear that Neffy wants to create opportunities to harm American citizens.

The picture in the link is stunning, and an egregious display of TSA's gross incompetence.

Yes

I wondered what the 'new technology' being installed and calibrated at the now-closed checkpoint was. What better time and place to roll out 'new technology' than at the world's busiest airport at the start of an extended peak travel period. Shut down an entire checkpoint at an airport that's already so slammed by TSA's work slowdown that it has talked about going to private security.

This untested 'new technology' being urgently rolled out is supposed to improve checkpoint transit times. It would be interesting to know if Neffy benefits directly from this 'technology'.

Oh...wondering what this 'new technology' is? Apparently it's 1) the US version of the automated tub returns that have been seen at non-US airports for years and 2) a chip-in-bin mechanism to automatically divert suspect bags for bag checks.

Not sure how either of these 'improvements' will improve checkpoint transit times, but someone at TSA is going to make $$$ off this stuff, and that's the real concern.

Meanwhile, Congress sits on its hands. I've read that there's no work slowdown at the DC airports. Presumably members of Congress and their families are getting preferential front-of-line treatment (or they're hopping on donors' corporate jets) when they return to DC from their home airports. There's no way they are waiting patiently in three hour lines every week. That's for us 'little people'.

I was asking myself why was a uniformed TSA screener standing there serving no apparent useful purpose while a non-TSA employee functioned as the TDC. Training or concern that TSA screeners will become excess?

Has anyone else seen non-TSA TDC's?

I just read this article on CNN:

http://www.cnn.com/2016/05/06/aviati...creening-lines