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STL T2 yesterday evening was an absolute mess. The line started at the door, went right to the end of the SW checkin counters, wrapped around, went all the way back to the other side of the terminal (by a closed checkpoint :rolleyes:) and back towards the center at the checkpoint. It had to be at least a 90 minute line. Precheck backed up too, that took me almost 30 minutes to get through.
I fly out of there a lot on Sunday evenings and it is never like this. A complete and utter failure on the part of the TSA. |
Originally Posted by t325
(Post 26668269)
A complete and utter failure on the part of the TSA.
It has to be deliberate. No group of people could truly have the total manangerial incompetence that TSA routinely demonstrates. |
Originally Posted by T-the-B
(Post 26668364)
I'm beginning to think it is not a failure but rather a deliberate plan. 1) Slow things down. 2) Blame lack of funding. 3) Get more money to squander.
It has to be deliberate. No group of people could truly have the total manangerial incompetence that TSA routinely demonstrates. |
Originally Posted by mdlee3
(Post 26658947)
There are other options such as taking it out to their car or going back out and giving it to somebody that's not travelling, but more often than not, ppl are going to pick either dispose of it or mailing it.
The new groin pat-down, which went into effect at the end of January, is the one thing that has slowed us down the most. That's why I encourage every person to remove their belt if they have one on. Other TSOs do as well, but it's not a requirement so all we can do is suggest it. Even if it was a requirement, it wouldn't matter. Just look at how many people leave their laptops in their bag or they take it out and then place something on top of it. My biggest pet peeve about this is when people remove their laptop and place it in a bin and then place the bag in the bin over the laptop. That has the same effect as leaving the laptop in the bag. So to answer your question, I don't really think it's tighter screener standards as much as it is a different, and more time-consuming, way of doing it. There are also 2 recent changes that slow things down at TDC, but not as much as the groin pat-down does. We aren't allowed to accept paper IDs as a primary ID anymore. These don't happen very much, maybe 2-3 a day per checkpoint at IND, but the person that has one always wants to argue with us which slows down the process for that individual passenger. Also, if a passenger has a BP printed from home that won't scan, we have to send that passenger back to the ticker counter or kiosk to get one printed at the airport. This actually happens quite a bit. The other day, I sent 8 people back to the counter in about a 10 minute period, but for each person, I would attempt to scan it a few times on my scanner and then even try the other scanners that were around so they wouldn't have to go back. A process that takes about 15 seconds turns into a task that takes a minute or more if the BP isn't scanning. 2) Why does the TDC need to scan a BP? What does the scanning accomplish? Is an image of the BP taken and stored? Does the scan merely confirm that the BP is legit? Does the scan prevent duplicate BPs from being used in rapid succession? Does it compare the bar code against the name on the BP to see if they match?
Originally Posted by mdlee3
(Post 26659892)
I did clearly say dispose of or mail. What is your point? I also forgot to put one other option in my reply. The person can also go out and check the bag. Once again, that's an option that the vast majority of the people don't utilize when something such as a knife is found in their bag.
All I can say about the belt that alarms the AIT resulting in a groin pat-down is that is that it's a change in the SOP, which I won't be discussing. As far as laptops in the bag, there is a slight difference in the software on pre lanes compared to standard lanes. The hardware is the same, but the software is slightly different. A laptop in a bag on a standard lane will get flagged 99% of the time. A laptop in a bag on a pre lane won't because of the software. As I've said, I've witnessed the unproductive TSA employees at other airports when I've travelled. At IND, during peak times, nobody is just standing around. I'm not counting BDOs in that statement because they actually aren't certified to do anything other than TDC or divesting people on the checkpoint. If you're travelling and there's a TSA problem that slows down your screening, doesn't that also make it your problem? For instance, the other day, we were short-handed because we had people on leave, but then then 2 others called in. So we had 1 bag checker covering lanes 5 and 6. There were several bag checks on one of the 2 lanes and then a couple checks got called on the other lane. The bag checker was doing what she could at the time, but she couldn't keep up. The STSO on duty at the time had gone back to the private screening room with a passenger and another officer so the people that were waiting on their bags to be checked just had to wait until somebody got freed up to be able to search their bag. You can claim that's a TSA problem all day long and it really is, but it's also your problem as a traveler. I've had plenty of jobs where I have had to deal with the public. Rule number one: Customers are stupid. Deal with it. Don't blame them, don't punish them, don't alienate them, don't lose your cool. Deal with it. If you can't deal with it, you shouldn't be in a customer service job. TSA is in a customer service job. It is well-known that the general public, particularly the huge throngs or people who do not fly on a regular basis, will not know the ins and outs of the rules like the backs of their hands, and will make mistakes. Flying makes people nervous (or outright terrified), and they screw up. It's TSA's job to build soft, easy, intuitive options into the system to handle such mistakes. TSA has not. The agency has refused from day one to adjust itself to the way people fly - it insists on changing the tens of millions of flyers to the way IT wants to handle security, and that causes friction. You can bristle at your critics, blame your victims, and spew meaningless platitudes about constantly changing threat matrices and balancing liberty against security, but at the end of the day, there are much better ways to do what TSA does - nearly the whole rest of the world uses those methods - but TSA continues to insist that the failed, ineffective, meaningless, abusive, wasteful, and often un-Constitutional methods it uses are somehow better than the methods used everywhere else, despite everywhere else finding threat items and TSA missing threat items. You can blame the victim all day long, but if TSA is tasked with screening passengers and fails to get the job done in a timely fashion, fails to find the items it is tasked with finding, fails to treat its *employers* (i.e. the citizenry of the United States for whom they work and whom they are tasked with protecting) with any sort of respect, deference, or dignity - that is TSA's fault, all Dave, all night, alltogether, and in all other ways. |
IAH C was just nuts yesterday (Monday) morning. My wife has been making weekly flights since January and had never seen it that bad. We got there at 6:30am or so and after checking bags we got in the pre-check line that must have had 300 or more people in it. It snaked around the main entrance area with 4 long switchbacks. Granted the line moved at a good pace it took about 20 minutes to get to the ID check and final checkpoint.
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If the TSA considers that the groin pat-down is truly a major contributor to the TSA making massive and slower lines, it's certainly not what I consider the lowest hanging fruit on the tree when it comes to fixing the long TSA lines that are a ripe terrorist target.
Will it be the TSA proctology exam that is next blamed for these lines if/when a US plane is targeted by a bottom/backside bomb-concealer/user? |
Originally Posted by GUWonder
(Post 26673089)
If the TSA considers that the groin pat-down is truly a major contributor to the TSA making massive and slower lines, it's certainly not what I consider the lowest hanging fruit on the tree when it comes to fixing the long TSA lines that are a ripe terrorist target.
Will it be the TSA proctology exam that is next blamed for these lines if/when a US plane is targeted by a bottom/backside bomb-concealer/user? |
The PreCheck line at BNA was the longest I've ever seen this morning. TDC processing was slower than the regular lines, and the lines for WTMD and X-Ray were packed, despite there being three WTMD lanes open for PreCheck.
My observations: - Pre document checkers were doing perfunctory doc/ID checks, but taking long pauses between each traveler. - Many of the people in the Pre line had obviously never been in one before. Random inclusion or PreCheck newbies, or a combination? No way to tell. - Lengthy X-Ray bag exams, with 1 in 3 going to secondary bag inspection. - WTMD "quota" alarms for about 1 in 5 travelers. - Still lots of TSA workers standing around doing nothing. At the TDC, there were two TSA blue-shirts standing off to the side of the regular lines, talking to each other, and a two-striper circling the TDC podiums, chatting and joking with the document checkers. |
TSA ID checking adds exactly zip to security. And why do the TSA TDC's need to waste time marking anything on a boarding pass? Exactly how do those marks add to better security?
TSA is in dire need of an efficiency review. TSA people standing around doing nothing, excess employees, or just plain non-productive employees, and a host of other TSA caused issues that result in long backups and present a real security threat of massed people waiting on TSA. TSA is the problem! |
Originally Posted by Boggie Dog
(Post 26673530)
TSA is in dire need of an efficiency review. TSA people standing around doing nothing, excess employees, or just plain non-productive employees, and a host of other TSA caused issues that result in long backups and present a real security threat of massed people waiting on TSA.
I have a friend possibly flying domestically out of ORD this weekend, am telling friend to get to ORD at least 3 hours prior to departure time... |
Originally Posted by TheBOSman
(Post 26673539)
Never mind having to roll out hundreds of cots for people to sleep in an airport all night, which sounds like a terrible thing for security to me.
I have a friend possibly flying domestically out of ORD this weekend, am telling friend to get to ORD at least 3 hours prior to departure time... ORD is getting a lot of attention. I would bet that the situation there will improve rapidly, at least for the short term. TSA has been front page news for a couple of weeks now and I would think that more SES level TSA employee heads are on the chopping block. TSA has blamed the public at every turn for the TSA meltdown when the problem is clearly internal TSA mismanagement. |
I work at DEN and was leaving work this morning. Normally, the A Concourse screening area is a few hundred people deep (there is no TSA Pre-check at this security checkpoint). Today, they had 2 lines open. All the nude-scopes machine closed and everyone was going through the magnometer. There were probably 1 dozen or 2 in line. The shortest line I have seen at that checkpoint in a while. I should have checked the North & South checkpoints to see how they were but was trying to catch the employee shuttle bus.
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Originally Posted by mdlee3
(Post 26658743)
...I am still not blaming passengers for the delays, but there are things that passengers can do to speed up their own portion of the screening process....
Also: You say people should use common sense at the checkpoint, and so they do. They pack bottles of water--because bottles of water are harmless. They object to patdowns--because having a stranger's hands on their genitals is highly unwelcome. They wear a belt that was "okay" last time--because it was "okay" last time. |
Originally Posted by HawaiiTrvlr
(Post 26674728)
I work at DEN and was leaving work this morning. Normally, the A Concourse screening area is a few hundred people deep (there is no TSA Pre-check at this security checkpoint). Today, they had 2 lines open. All the nude-scopes machine closed and everyone was going through the magnometer. There were probably 1 dozen or 2 in line. The shortest line I have seen at that checkpoint in a while. I should have checked the North & South checkpoints to see how they were but was trying to catch the employee shuttle bus.
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Originally Posted by WillCAD
(Post 26670988)
I've had plenty of jobs where I have had to deal with the public. Rule number one: Customers are stupid. Deal with it. Don't blame them, don't punish them, don't alienate them, don't lose your cool. Deal with it. If you can't deal with it, you shouldn't be in a customer service job. TSA is in a customer service job. It is well-known that the general public, particularly the huge throngs or people who do not fly on a regular basis, will not know the ins and outs of the rules like the backs of their hands, and will make mistakes. Flying makes people nervous (or outright terrified), and they screw up. It's TSA's job to build soft, easy, intuitive options into the system to handle such mistakes. TSA has not. The agency has refused from day one to adjust itself to the way people fly - it insists on changing the tens of millions of flyers to the way IT wants to handle security, and that causes friction.
You can bristle at your critics, blame your victims, and spew meaningless platitudes about constantly changing threat matrices and balancing liberty against security, but at the end of the day, there are much better ways to do what TSA does - nearly the whole rest of the world uses those methods - but TSA continues to insist that the failed, ineffective, meaningless, abusive, wasteful, and often un-Constitutional methods it uses are somehow better than the methods used everywhere else, despite everywhere else finding threat items and TSA missing threat items. You can blame the victim all day long, but if TSA is tasked with screening passengers and fails to get the job done in a timely fashion, fails to find the items it is tasked with finding, fails to treat its *employers* (i.e. the citizenry of the United States for whom they work and whom they are tasked with protecting) with any sort of respect, deference, or dignity - that is TSA's fault, all Dave, all night, alltogether, and in all other ways. |
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