The worst part is that it could be different.

Recently, I was transiting in AMS and had to go through security. An abundance of lines, much space so travelers could unpack and pass other passengers who weren't ready to move forward.

The screeners were very friendly to. I had stuffed everything in my carry-on and those poor devil couldn't see anything (The screener even showed me the scan of my carry-on). So I unpacked everything. She screened everything again. I got to see my DSLR under x-ray. I was treated as a customer, not a criminal. I was happy. They were happy. And all of it took me less than 5 minutes.

National Guard
 

How about temporarily training and using the National Guard as TSA checkers until enough private citizens can be hired. Continue to use the guards in airports that have difficulty retaining TSA staff.

:cool:9
TSA has 10-15k paid HQ employees. Surely TSA could TDY a couple of 1,000 of them to perform duties that would free up qualified screeners to concentrate only on screenings. Then there are the 1500 or so TSA BDO's who currently serve no useful purpose. Make them tub stackers and door monitors. That is an immediate 3500 already on the payroll TSA employees that could be used to resolve the current problems. TSA has options and chooses not to do anything that weakens its demands for more money from Congress.

This entire event has been manufactured by factions within TSA.

The answer to this is to replace TSA. They are useless.
Otherwise, the answer is to use the excessive amount of staff that TSA already has and make then work, not stand around at checkpoints doing nothing or sitting at HQ pushing paper.

TSA does not need more staff or more money.

You probably could only get away with this at IAD, DCA and BWI. Elsewhere you'd have to cover travel for those HQ employees, and the expenses of travel would easily exceed the costs of hiring local TSOs.

Yes, sending people TDY would result in travel expenses and per diem. Such expenses are paid by government everyday for training and temporary assignments.

The rebuild central security check at AMS had some really bad troubles in the first few weeks but now it works surprisingly well.

Quite a few of the security checks in northern Europe are manned by friendly and competent staff.

This.

If Neffy truly cared about turning TSA around, he could start right now by springing surprise visits on the FSDs of shafted airports like ORD, ATL and EWR. Show up unnannounced, grab the FSD, and start looking at video monitors or viewing checkpoints. Witness the slowdowns. Ask the FSD to explain every single TSO standing around doing nothing. Count how many TSOs at a backlogged checkpoint are workers and how many are non-contributing BDOs, LTSOs and STSOs. Ask the FSD what every single one of them are doing - and are supposed to be doing. See how many TSOs are engaged on their cellphones or personal conversations while pax are standing waiting.

That's what Neffy might do if he cared one iota what happens. Instead, he's focused on his retirement good-bye bonus and his post-TSA private sector payouts.

I think this article actually gets to the meat of the TSA Checkpoint backups.
AS stated by several people here, including myself, this current slowdown is intentional.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/o...518-story.html

Apparently, Managed Inclusion has made a miraculous return to ORD:

https://twitter.com/AskTSA/status/733300176119566336

The Strange Science of Why Airport Security Lines Spiral Out of Control

This was yesterday's article. Pretty interesting...

Ha! That may or may not be Neffy's silver bullet. He's played his little slowdown game and now the union's gotten involved. The union is in a perfect position: Neffy's head is on the chopping block and the union can support a 'work to rule' slowdown whether or not Neffy likes it

Meanwhile, to put some of these numbers in perspective: SEA is hiring 90 full-time workers to assist with tub-stacking and line management.

90 workers at one big (but not huge) airport. Neffy says Chicago (ORD? ORD+MDW?) is getting 300 additional workers, out of the 700 he says he is going to hire nationwide.

Seriously?

BTW...saw a picture taken at the 'academy'. Typical TSA. People standing around in the background doing nothing, and one trainer is demonstrating the 'surrender' position for one trainee.

I'm so glad to know my taxpayer $$ are being used this way, instead of staffing another security checkpoint.

I heard top TSA brass is visiting ORD today; hence TSA is moving people through quickly. Same thing happened in MSP when Neffenger visited. Then it all went ack to new normal.

Also, AskTSA is promoting "Your safety is our #1 priority."

How can passenger safety be TSA's #1 priority when they are setting pax up as sitting ducks?

With many business travelers back in the regular lines instead of the faster Pre-Check lines also has something to do with it. TSA was processing a lot of people through Pre-Check - paid members, status Fre-Check guys like me, random kettles in large batches. Now that Fre-Check and Kettle-Check has been reduced, there are more people playing shoe carnival, Freedom Baggie and laptop show and tell, and going through rapescans.

So, will TSA crank back the Pre-Check numbers to where they were? I know of zero issues with any flyer who went through Pre-Check vs the regular lines the couple of years that Pre-Check had free folks going through on a regular basis.