United States’ Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson has placed an urgent request with Congress for $28m-worth of emergency funding ‘to aggressively address very serious congestion and wait times at TSA screening points in US airports’.

 

This follows an earlier application to Congress just two weeks ago to approve a completely separate request for an additional $34m. This was in responce to the unprecedented increase in the number of travellers at all US airports – up by no less than 100m since 2013.

 

 

NO COMPROMISE ON SECURITY

Added to this are the more recent unseen increased security measures brought in to the country’s major international airports in particular, following the Brussels Airport and Paris bombings.

 

Johnson said last week: “In the face of increased air travel volume, we will not compromise aviation security. We are quickly and aggressively surging resources to keep travellers moving through airports, and to keep them safe.”

 

[The great and unspoken extent to which airport retail outlets are suffering due to the reduced dwell times of passengers delayed in security lines will also doubtless be a huge issue in future-Ed].

 

 

TSA HEAD REMOVED…

Meanwhile, Johnson’s latest comments on additional funding come only weeks after Kelly Hoggan was removed as the head of the US Transportation Security Administration (which reports to Johnson) after nationwide television news footage showed two-hour plus long security queues at some international airports – including Chicago O’Hare, one of the biggest.

 

Tens of thousands of travellers have also missed their flights, which appears to be the main reason for Hoggan’s sudden and unexplained ’transfer’. Nevertheless, Johnson says he now hopes that the extra funding will help to relieve pressure during the rest of the summer, as he explained: “Two weeks ago Congress approved our request to reprogramme $34 million.

 

ADDITIONAL STAFF – AND MORE ON THE WAY

“This has enabled us to expedite the hiring of 768 new TSOs, which we expect to have on board by mid-June, and to pay additional overtime to the existing TSO workforce. This action alone will enable the screening of 220,000 additional passengers per day.

 

“Today I sent to Congress a second reprogramming request for $28 million. This money will fund the immediate conversion of 2,784 TSOs from part-time to full-time at the Nation’s 20 busiest airports. This will enable us to screen almost 82,000 additional passengers per day. I hope Congress will act on this request soon.”

 

 

Johnson is not the only one. Both Homeland Security and the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), which report to him, are clearly under huge pressure. Some political and press critics are also predictably unsympathetic.

 

They claim that TSA’s target to convert 25m passengers across its US airports network for the faster PreCheck preregistered service has not been realised, with just over 8m answering the call.

 

POLITICS AT PLAY… SURELY NOT…

Worse still, some have even accused TSA of prematurely cutting staff in anticipation of the ‘PreCheck reliever’ (which ultimately never came) and then trying to divert attention by criticising airlines for charging excessive fees for hold luggage – so encouraging passengers to carry as much hand cabin baggage as possible to avoid such fees.

 

Meanwhile Johnson says TSA has now introduced several new measures to try to expedite security lines more efficiently. These include more canine teams to assist in the screening process, so helping to screen an additional 40,000 passengers a day at the nation’s seven busiest airports; more TSA personnel assigned to airports; reassignment of officers from smaller to larger, busier airports; plus deployment of so-called ‘optimisation teams’ at the country’s to 20 airports to address ‘any excessive delays’.

 

PRIVATISING QUEUES…

Johnson claims that 90% of passengers currently enrolled in the TSA pre-check service currently have ‘an average wait time’ of five minutes or less, although its website is still advising passengers taking international flights to turn up three hours in advance and those on domestic two hours.

 

Typically, those passengers using the separate TSA pre-check lines (or other similar programmes) are not required to remove their shoes, belts or light outerwear jackets and they are also allowed to keep their laptops and liquid bags inside their carry-on luggage when they pass through airport security.