My training as a Flight Engineer had elements for events we hoped never happened, and in my case many never happened outside of training, yet those procedures were known dead cold.

TSA claims to be a highly trained security force, with on going training and testing. Each screener is certified for each screening position, plus each checkpoint has several employees who can assist in difficult situations. Not to mention numerous supervisory staff at each checkpoint who can coach newer or poorly trained screeners.

With TSA being on the "Front Lines of the War On Terror" TSA's screeners don't have the luxury of not getting it right each and every time.

Look more carefully--the scanner is the authority, not the TSA website. Thus the scanner is free to decide that nitro pills are not allowed. You have a major case of rose-colored glasses when it comes to the TSA.

TSA blog posts and news announcements are not binding at the checkpoint.

TSA's official statement on the matter still says it is up to the individual screener. In my case, the screener, backed by multiple levels of higher-ranked TSA employees, exercised personal discretion and/or a secret unpublished TSA rule to confiscate my nitroglycerine.

The confiscation was not WRONG according the website, then and now.. The language on the website clearly warns pax that this can happen and there is no recourse if it does.

If TSA was serious about not confiscating medicines like nitro tabs, they would have updated the formal rules on the website, instead of just putting it in the non-binding blog post. After all, non-FT readers are going to use the tool TSA created especially for pax, and that tool is going to tell them that the screener has the final say. Nothing about hidden rules or secret criteria (that clearly were followed in my case), and no reference to a non-binding blog post I sincerely doubt that most people looking on the TSA website to find out if something is allowed go searching the blog posts. They shouldn't have to - there should be no conflict between what is on the blog and what is stated in the rules that actually apply at the checkpoint.

In effect, TSA allows nothing. Using “screener discretion" TSA can confiscate ANYTHING no matter what’s on a list or what [MENTION=334464]ASK[/MENTION]TSA says is o.k.

This.

When the pilot who safely landed a plane in the Hudson River was hailed as a hero, Sully said it was an event that he had trained for all his life, just as all pilots do. They train and hope to heck it never happens, and it won't for most of them, but if and when it does, they are expected to remember what to do.

Assisted by a current approved procedures document in the cockpit, with designated steps to take for specific problems. None of which TSA agents seem to have.

Pilots are trained to fly the airplane first. Sully did just that using years of training, experience, and personal judgment to guide his actions. No checklist of procedural steps can make up for learned knowledge and skills. He is a true professional, TSA screeners not so much.

In most work places, people are trained to perform their duties correctly and if they do not, they are either retrained so that they do perform correctly, or they are terminated. Usually, employees who wish to keep their jobs learn from the mistakes of others and avoid the actions which earned a colleague a slap on the wrist.

Why aren't TSA employees required to correct their mistakes and "follow the rules"? Why do the senior people continue to back up the errant employee who has obviously made a mistake? Why are such mistakes routinely ascribed to "screener discretion" when everyone can see that the screener was wrong/vengeful/stupid? Why are 95% of dangerous devices missed - over and over, without any improvement?

I occasionally come across helpful, polite and professional TSA employees, neat and squared-away in their uniforms, focused on their job, not their cellphones. Why are they not the models that all employees follow and emulate, instead of the rare exception?

Something is wrong in an organization that behaves this way yet continues to draw billions in tax dollars to operate.

I think the uniforms have a lot to do with it. The uniforms a) make them look like a paramilitary organization (like police or law enforcement), and b) foster a cliquish, brotherhood, us-vs-them attitude amongst the rank and file. Of course, the uniforms are not the only factor, since the suits on the line so often back up the uniformed TSOs when they screw up or abuse a traveler, but I think the uniforms are definitely a factor. And I wonder how many TSMs are former uniformed TSOs who worked their way up, and thus still have the feeling of brotherhood?

Any uniformed organization fosters this feeling of brotherhood, loyalty, and closeness. This is not always a bad thing, but it often creates an adversarial, even hostile, attitude toward any outsider. And that can be a very bad thing in the case of an organization endowed with power over the general public, such as TSA, law enforcement, or military. Uniforms aren't really necessary for such attitudes - look at various professions like politicians and unionized factory workers - but uniforms reinforce the isolation from outsiders and worsen the superior, adversarial attitude.

Catch 22. The uniforms were introduced in an attempt to garner more respect from the public. If your theory is correct, and I have no doubt it is, what it is has done instead is to make TSA less respected by those of the public who are smart enough to realize that TSA is not law enforcement.

Moderator's Note: Topic Drift
 

Folks,

When posting in this thread, please keep in mind that the subject of this discussion is the TSA rules for dealing with disabled passengers in the PreCheck lanes.

Please try to keep your comments at least tangentially related to this topic (FlyerTalk Rule 5). While debating TSA screeners training maybe relevant, comments about TSO uniforms are not; those belong in other threads.

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

Thank you for your understanding.

TWA884
Travel Safety/Security co-moderator

Note in that example, though, the implicit underlying idea that training must be a continuous process. Sully trained for that event "all his life", not just once in order to complete a form somewhere.

I do not know how often TSA trains and retrains its workforce. Retraining the workforce isn't a sign that the first training "didn't work"; it should be a recognition that training must be periodically refreshed in order to be effective. That could be a contributing factor here.

I'm sure TSA's perennially high turnover rate is also a factor.

In defense of TSA (boy, I find myself defending them more and more) they did set up a training center to help ensure just one training program is being used instead of 400 or so different programs at the many airports. Of course it all goes wrong when these fresh new faces, trained with the latest policies, return to their airports. Airports where the FSD can interpret things how ever they like or even new hire screeners use their discretion to confiscate a person nitroglycerin pills because they think they are explosive.

The thing about newbies is that if they don't last, they never get re-trained after they've gotten some experience. They aren't a majority of the work force, but the rate is significant enough to have an impact. TSA newbies, like newbies on any job, either take up extra resources because they require more oversight until they are fully up to speed, or they are left to wing it, and we've all witnessed how well that works out.

It would be very interesting to know if TSA keeps track of how long TSOs who fail Red Team tests have been with TSA. Are they primarily newbies, complacent long-termers, TSOs with disciplinary history (tardiness, etc)?

I honestly can't see any reason why all wheelchair-bound pax aren't directly handled by at least an LTSO, if not an STSO. Those folks should (generally) have more time on the job as well as first shot at retraining. It doesn't make sense to have newbies who haven't even cut their teeth handling 'ordinary' trouble-free pax handling pax who are particularly diverse in their abilities and the screening challenges they present.