Except for the Shoes....
 

Returning to the US on DL, PRG/ATL, Thursday, I found departure security (especially for US and Israel flights, apparently concentrating at a pair of gates at the end of B concourse) for more rigorous and invasive (except for shoes) than I expected. Delivered in "waves" at various points in the process, admittedly with greater courtesy than often evident from the TSA, and with Czech police (armed with the latest models of HK smgs) in evidence nearby), the process was time consuming to eventually "clear" into the secure waiting area. The initial check in screening was detailed, and the wait nearly as long for BEs/status pax as for the "common herd", while the final checks at the gate offered no short cuts for BEs before the final boarding "Breezeway".

ATL was muchly a breeze, although the "re-clearing" TSA security appeared to be ill-organized and haphazard in moving arrivees to lines - with likely greater efficiency attainable by something but other than a single entry line and TSA personnel attempting to parcel out "bunches". Immigration was more efficient, and Customs no more than a quick wave....

The bright spot of the day was a single young female African American TSAer, equipped with a bright smile and ready, responsive answers manning an "intersection". The dark spot? The fact that so few TSA agents have any grasp of a second language (or maybe even English, for that matter). The verbal combat between a tiny Japanese tourist in a face mask and an rotund African American TSA staffer, a bit differentially-abled in matters of grammar, syntax and vocabulary, would have made a memorable Saturday Night Live episode