Boggie Dog

It doesn't take a well paid, full benefits, nice retirement package government employee to make sure a person has a boarding pass to enter the flight side of an airport. What is the purpose of the airport workers who check to make sure a person has a boarding pass? Make their job actually functional.

sleuth

phltraveler

This proposal to potentially skip screening at smaller airports (50 seaters only) is a joke and will never happen.

Public outrage will prevent it. Most 50 seaters use hardstands or jet bridges connected to sterile sides of domestic terminals with no realistic possibility to renovate to have a sealed door system that forces arrivals (like international arrivals) to the non-sterile side first to be screened. The additional staffing that would be required to screen these passengers at the gate, the amount of space for them to be allowed through, and the nature of the space/equipment required means you aren't going to effectively screen these people by blocking them via personnel when they arrive at the gate.

Contractors at smaller airports are more likely IMO as contractors are likely willing to undercut the TSA on pricing. 1 TSA supervisor, then the contractors.

TWA884

Folks,

This thread is a about the possibility of eliminating TSA security screening at smaller airports. It is not for suggesting other ideas to improve the efficiency of the TSA, debating the risks posed by liquids and gels and discussing the TSA screeners work conditions and compensation package.

Per FlyerTalk Rule 5, please confine your comments in this discussion as closely as possible to the topic of this thread.

We have plenty of other threads discussing the suggestions to modify and/or improve the screening process and debating the liquids rule.

Future off-topic remarks will be summarily deleted without further notice.

Thank you for understanding,

TWA884
Travel Safety/Security co-moderator

petaluma1

This from when this discussion first started 2 years ago:

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/26537393-post12.html

PVC has 7 flights to BOS per day on planes that can carry 9 passengers. And yet still today they have TSA screeners in place at PVC. I wonder how many of those passengers are making connecting flights vs. the number for whom Boston is their final destination.

Whatever the number, having TSA in place there is a total waste.

OTOH, TSA saving $115 million is a tiny drop in the bucket of billions being flushed down the drain at TSA.

DoTheBartMan

1. There may be a $$$ benefit on equipment because equipment from smaller airports can be used to expand checkpoints or replace broken equipment at larger airports.
2. It's been a while so the details may be a little fuzzy regarding which airport, but I believe it was at Cody, WY, that the local cop was one of the TSA screeners (but not the one working the x-ray screen).
I believe they use GA terminals instead of the regular terminals. Anyone taking such a flight and then connecting to a "larger" flight would have to go to the regular terminal and go through the regular baggage drop-off and screening procedures.
Mixing domestic passengers with international passengers that need to go through immigration and customs is a bad idea and would have serious consequences if someone found a way for arriving international passengers to bypass immigration procedures.

I know there's a special setup for GUM-HNL flights since those passengers don't need to go through US immigration but must go through US customs (Guam is a separate customs zone), but doing something similar at all major airports could be high risk if they overlook something when it comes to routing each passenger in the international arrivals area correctly.

Maxwell Smart

You bring up a key point that didn't really click till now-- This theoretical savings of UP TO $115M is only 1.5% of the annual TSA budget!

Hardly a significant amount, relative to the increased security risks and major inconveniences and infrastructure changes this would entail.

It reinforces to me that this is may well just be a tactic to force smaller airports to cough up money to pay for screening services, either by TSA or contractors.

jackal

If this goes through, a decent number of flights will be affected--enough to fill a designated wing or area of most airports (i.e. not just a couple of gates). Thus it wouldn't require new gate areas or terminals to be built; rather, an existing area can be walled off and opened directly to the landside portion. For the airports you mentioned:

DEN: part of the A concourse (probably the east half, since it already has all those gates for regional aircraft) could be walled off and opened directly to the bridge to the terminal. The existing screening area at the end of the bridge could be used for connecting passengers.
SLC: concourse A could be easily walled off from the hallway to B
ORD: the L gates could be set aside for AA and the high B gates (B11-22) might be convertible for UA
DFW: just pick a quarter or half of one of the terminals (A or B, probably) and put a wall in and open it to landside. Set up a pair of TSA checkpoints at the bottom of the escalators up to the SkyLink.
SEA: this one might take a little bit of construction, unless they are willing to wall off the entirety of D or something, but that is probably a loss of too many gates.
CLT: wall off the A gates right there at the A security checkpoint and move the checkpoint across the hall (so screening dumps people out right by B1)

Perfect solutions? No, but it doesn't take billions of dollars to do, and it's functional with a little creativity. But it depends on how many flights are affected. It'd actually be easier to do if the 76-seater regionals were included, because that would actually cover a large enough number of flights that entire concourses could be designated as open to landside.

DoTheBartMan

ATL: Turn the T gates into an "unscreened" area with direct access to the outside.
PIT: They could have turned concourse E into an "unscreened" area, but it has already been removed. Move screening to the concourse entrances in the airside terminal, but leave one concourse "unscreened". This would still work when they build the new landside terminal and remove some C/D gates in 2023.

It's doable and shouldn't be too expensive, but it's still a cost that the airports won't want to cover themselves.

Bearcat06

I bet I could come up with some good targets of opportunity and take out a lot of folks out.... Who says it needs to be a building...?

chollie

I wonder if this will mean ID checks are postponed until pax attempt to connect at a hub - or will the airlines at TSA-less airports have to assume that responsibility?

I don't believe for a moment that this is a serious proposal. TSA is angling for more money or outsourcing smaller airport staff or coming up with some new expensive boondoggle to 'automate' some form of screening at smaller locations.

LtKernelPanic

Saw this in the local paper here today. Do. Not. Like.

While the TSA is 99% security theater if they remove TSA screening from our airport which currently has 3 RTs a day with a fourth starting in 30 days (and a fifth and possibly a sixth starting this fall/winter) having to deplane to a landside gate at ORD or DFW, go through security there and still try to make a connecting flight will be a nightmare. I would hope with almost 100,000 pax using our airport a year they would use a little common sense (I know, I know.) and keep our TSA checkpoint open especially since they installed a shiny new NoS there a little over a year ago.

TWA884

According to the Los Angeles Times, the TSA dismisses report that it is considering ending passenger screenings at smaller airports:

LtKernelPanic

Ah so the usual posturing for more money. As much as I dislike the TSA if they did that it would make our airport much less an attractive option over traveling to Sioux Falls or Omaha.

petaluma1

IOW, TSA's trail balloon popped.