Departed through DFW/E35 last Monday at 6ayem, which meant a REAL early arrival at terminal. TSA crew were polite, professional and efficient, and I am NOT easy to please in the middle of the night.

I went through IAD Connections last Friday and noted that TSA and Immigration have made great progress in expediting the process. I was on the backside of four flight arrivals and still there was no line.

tongue in cheek:
I am a (fake) Moderator here. This thread that you have started does not belong in here. This blog is reserved for travelers who want to complain about the TSA and the screening process.
I'm moving your thread to the Travelers Sci-Fi blog.

LOL, this is a complaints-only forum ;-)

Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa!

I had to check and make sure I was in the right website. Praising TSA?!? What is the world coming to.

Not praising TSA, praising PART of TSA.

Fair is fair ... even if it endangers my super-curmudgeon status. I've come to believe that, as a society, we're too quick to complain about the negative and too slow to acknowledge the positive. ^

I'm really just doing my part to bring the world into balance ...

It is appreciated.

I'll give certain parts of the TSA a quick praise while I am at it.

(1) I have not been de-shoed at SDF or secondary screened in over 2 months now, which must be a record.

(2) I'm finding more friendly and professional staff at select airports, most recently a great experience at both ORD and at DTW.

I'll praise that part of it and encourage the good folks I encountered to keep up the good work!

The TSA has many great employees, but there are bad apples too. Given the # of employees at a given checkpoint, it's quite possible to come across a bad apple on a semi-regular basis with the amount of travel I do. At the airports with sane policies, I find more good screeners -- perhaps because their work enviornment is better and as a result the employees are happier.

If one is in a bad work enviornment to start with, which I hear is widespread within the TSA, chances are the employees are not happy; when employees are not happy, it shows -- I've venture to say some (not all) of the bad apples I've come across are employees who are not happy, they're in a bad mood, and come across rudely or with an "I don't care" attitude. They're just there for the paycheck and it's just a "job" with lots of repetition and even worse when public interaction is mixed in when they are working at airports where the "harassment" policies exist. As individuals, many of them are likely good people, but being burt out & unhappy with the work enviornment, they get snappy when someone refuses to remove their sandals or shoes to walk across a dirty floor. Many likely regonize how silly some of these harassment policies are but "they have to be done" per the higher ups and it's frustrating when everyone doesn't comply.

At the airports where there many local "harassment" policies, I find morale to be low, I see screeners who have a "don't care" attitude who are just outright rude.

While ORD has always been one of the better airports, I notice others are improving. However, between the airports which are improving and the ones that are sliding downhill, the inconsistency is getting even greater.

The TSA as an organization, especially the higher ups who place no value on privacy and create the harassment policies, or local harassment policies, I don't care for.

Best,

SDF_Traveler

Impressive customer service - I wrote a letter to TSA re: customer service at CLT and received an email message from Customer Support and Quality Improvement Manager @dhs.gov with her Office/Cell/Fax number.

- Haven't had a chance to call - will call this coming week. Nice to see a quick response to my letter.