The head of security for America’s airports is told to pack his bags
Even if heads do roll, don’t expect airport lines to start doing the same
By A.W. WASHINGTON, DC
THE angry mobs that now comprise the endless security lines at America’s airports at least have the satisfaction of seeing the first head roll.
Earlier this week, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) replaced its security chief after a tumultuous three years on the job that were peppered with embarrassments for the agency, although no actual big security breaches. Kelly Hoggan (pictured) became the TSA’s assistant secretary for security operations in May 2013. In an e-mail to employees, the agency announced that he would be replaced on an acting basis by his deputy, Darby LaJoye.
While the TSA has come under recent fire for long queues that are only expected to lengthen as the summer travel season begins, the most damning indictment of Mr Hoggan’s team came last year. In June, it was reported that screeners had failed to detect explosives and weapons in 67 of 70 cases when agents posing as passengers had attempted to sneak them on to planes. Despite those troubles, Mr Hoggan received $90,000 in bonuses in just over one year, much to the annoyance of members of Congress, who questioned his boss, Peter Neffenger, sharply about the payments in a hearing earlier this month. Still, don’t expect a change at the top to affect lines at airports in the coming months. As a security official at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport told the New York Times, “The timing of this decision is too late to make a real difference for the summer. Neffenger is only doing this because the media and Congress are making him look bad.”
The real issue is a staffing shortage, caused in large part by the TSA’s rosy assumption that many more people would sign up for its PreCheck programme, which shortens lines by allowing members to move through an expedited channel. Instead, the PreCheck lines are often close to empty, while the principal queues get longer and longer. Travelling through Honolulu airport this weekend, Gulliver watched the security officer in the PreCheck line drum his hands on the table in boredom while chanting, “PreCheck, PreCheck, PreCheck”. The main queue, with two officers checking IDs and boarding passes, was about half an hour long—tedious, but far shorter than those at several larger airports in recent months. During that half hour, maybe four or five passengers moved through the expedited channel. It goes without saying that the idle officer did not open his services up to non-PreCheck members. (When ordinary passengers are permitted to skip the usual lines, PreCheck members rightly wonder why they’ve paid $85 to join the programme.)
Various solutions to the long lines have been proposed, all of them less than satisfactory. Two senators have urged the big airlines to suspend charges for checking bags into the hold, hoping that the change would lead to fewer carry-ons and shorter lines. Officials at five large American airports have publicly contemplated switching to private security teams, which they are allowed to do. (Although as Slatenotes, private firms would still have to follow tight federal screening standards and would be unlikely to speed up the process at all.) This blogger has suggested a temporary reduction in the cost of PreCheck in order to get more people to sign up before the summer crunch. Somehow, the TSA has not rushed to adopt that proposal. In short, there is no end in sight to the frustration. Even if heads do roll, don’t expect airport lines to start doing the same.
