Airports Looking at Booting TSA
Several major airports already use other companies than the TSA to manage passenger security and some are looking at bringing switching over as well. But any changes that passengers would see would be minimal reports The Washington Post.
Procedures in airport security lines do not change. Thirty private firms are contracted by the TSA to potentially work as screeners, and their employees are required by federal law to undergo the same training, use the same pat-down techniques and operate the same equipment – such as full-body scanners – that the TSA does.
Some airport managers and security experts say that private firms can handle the security better than the government, while others say such a change could hinder any progress that has been made. The one item that private contractors bring to the table is the ability to deal with personnel issues quickly. However, this is not the golden bullet, as many of us work in private sector and know how difficult it is to fire anyone.
The real issue of course is not being addressed. How to we make flying safer? How do we tighten security? Or do we loosen security?
Tags: TSA
Did we forget that private security firms ran airport security on 9/11? The thought of minimum wage contractors doing security doesn’t make me feel all that secure.
Yes, we the Collective America did. After all we can’t even remember that it was a Republican president who destroyed our economy in 2008.
Did you notice that the Congressman who is pushing this has this Convenant Security in his district? Ever since TSA took over screenings at airports, there have been a group of security firms spending alot of money on people like Congressman Mica to get back into this pretty lucrative business. Even this contractor notes that they pay their people more, so it isn’t as though this will save taxpayers any money.
But we should be clear that swapping out TSA for private screeners is not about security — it is about putting more taxpayer money into the pockets of the friends of Congressman Mica. If Mica was interested AT ALL in increasing airport security, there are still serious issues with the lack of screening of cargo, the lack of screening of ground crews with access to planes and so on. If anyone was interested in genuine security, they would have ditched these dumbass backscatter machines for an effort to better screen cargo. The Micas and the Covenants and the people pushing the backscatter boondoggle don’t give a damn about security — they just care about how much of your money they can get out of the security theater business.
I have not been on a plane in years, so I do not know how good or bad security is today. But when I did fly the people working security did not impress me and had the people skills of postal employees.
With all of the complaints I think something needs to be done. In the end it will cause long term damage to the already struggling tourism industry.
The problem is that most government employees have zero customer service skills. And the blame can be shared by federal employee unions and the poor job agencies do at public relations.
The statistics they keep quoting about how 99.9% of passengers have no issue with the security is a fantasy. And the troubling part is that out of the complaints that is their response.
I do not understand why pilots are perceived as a security risk. If they are then we have a bigger problem than passengers, we need to figure out why we are allowing pilots to fly commercial planes who are a security risk.
I deal with the VA, and they do a fair job of customer service. But for years they were horrible at it, and it took years for that to change. It took a major organizational focus from the top down on how to actually provide positive customer service. However, since they are the most scrutinized of any federal agency they had to do it.
The TSA needs come to this same realization, but from the official responses it appears they are not even close to figuring out that they have issues.
Concerning cost, private companies will always be cheaper, even if they pay their employees more. You have to look at total compensation, and federal benefits are not cheap. Though I don’t think we should move to private security companies.
I think congress should scrutinize the TSA as much as they do the VA.
Customer Service isn’t exactly TSA’s function — security is.
I fly for work a fair amount and in the main the people seem to do OK. If you are standing in a really long security line with few scanning ports open, (as happens often at B and C at PHL) you wonder ALOT about the people running the logistics. TSA can make monster mistakes — everyone has heard the stories of blades and guns and other stuff you aren’t supposed to have making it through, but customer service is far from their biggest problem. Their biggest problem is that they are still overly invested in scanning me and my stuff (sometimes imperfectly) and not very much invested in scanning the cargo that travels on the plane with me.
If we’re going to be less focused on how well TSA performs its security function but concerned about whether they tell you To Have A Nice Day, you might as well get rid of the entire business.
Cassandra,
I used to fly every day, and I stopped after 9/11. I owned a consulting company and had customer coast to coast, and I flew every day.
The point of the security process we have in airports is to promote the illusion of security. That is the fundamental problem with it. The system in place at airports is in large part a big public show.
The fact is that if someone is willing to give their own life, then you cannot stop them. The 9/11 hijackers didn’t have any james bond level scheme to hijack the planes.
The only way to prevent it is not to let potential security risks on the plane in the first place, which we have decided we are not going to do. I actually believe we should have a pre-screening deal where you get an id card.
A large part of security is selling the perception of secure.
If you work at the airport, and the TSA feels a need to make them go through security, then the person should not be working at the airport.
And yes they are dealing with people and customer service is part of their job. Your view echoes the problem the problem with the situation. They do not preceive that they have any duty to provide customer service.
And it has very little to do with being nice and has alot to do with being professional. Ask anyone in law enforcement about their training. THey deal with hostile people all day long, and alot of their job is customer service and being professional.
The VA had that opinion for years, and ask anyone at the VA about it now. They are taught about customer service and how to deal with the veterans.
You want to see angry people, veterans are assholes and very hard to deal with, and for years the VA employees met anger with anger. Well the VA employees lost. Do they have to take it from vets, no, but they have to be professional.
And the result of it is that the VA is one of the best run government agencies, and actually provides better care and service than the private sector.
I don’t disagree that security is a show — this is much of my point above. The customer service of TSA is just fine — they speak, they say please and thank you and are in large part quite courteous and quite professional. They are getting a bad rap right about now because of the pat down business, but I’ve never experienced a rude one. But you demonstrate the problem TSA is about to have — where people are going to be way less focused on what TSA is supposed to do and use the current unhappiness over the patdown protocol as a proxy for improved customer service. If you want that to go away — and I do — then ask for it to go away. Don’t wrap it up in *customer service*.
Customer service might be a poor choice of words on my part and I agree with you about it being a proxy. For me professionalism is the part I would focus on more.
The reason we have very a very different point of view about this is because I will never fly while the security procedures are in place.
For you a pat down is a low percentage, but for me it is not. People do not realize that the security procedures are unfair towards disabled people. I would have to basically do a strip search every time.
So while as a society we have deemed profiling unacceptable, we have no problem subjecting disabled people who have medical devices to strip searches.
I will never fly again.