TSA Boss In Chicago To Meet With Local Leaders About Airport Delays
CHICAGO (CBS) -- The head of the Transportation Security Administration will face some tough questions Friday from Mayor Rahm Emanuel, U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, members of Congress, and others, as the agency seeks to reduce excruciatingly long wait times at airport security checkpoints.
The meeting with TSA Administrator Peter Neffenger comes after the agency announced efforts to boost security staffing at both Chicago airports, which have seen lines as long as three hours in recent days.
While O'Hare International Airport was packed early Friday, lines were not nearly as long as they were Sunday, when about 450 American Airlines passengers alone missed flights due to extremely long security lines.
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It's unclear if any new efforts to relieve the long waits at security checkpoints will be announced at Friday's meeting.
The TSA already has announced plans to send 58 new security officers and four extra bomb-sniffing canine teams to O'Hare by month's end. In addition, 100 current part-time TSA officers at O'Hare and Midway airports will be moved to full-time duty within days to help during peak travel hours, and 250 more officers will be added to the airports by August. Authorized overtime will be tripled.
TSA officials said, while staffing is a problem, travelers also can help reduce wait times at security checkpoints by making sure they're not bringing any prohibited items in their carry-on bags. Screeners at Midway performed a demonstration Thursday to show just how much someone carrying those items can slow down the screening process.
"We are not using this event to blame it on passengers," TSA regional spokesman Mark Howell said. "There's many things on top of prohibited items. There's staffing. I'm not going to say that we don't need to fix our staffing. It's a lot of pieces to the puzzle when you're talking about the overall growth in wait times, and we're working with our partners at the airlines and the airports to really get in front of that, and we're doing a lot of things like increasing staffing and canines as well."
To drive home their point about prohibited items, the TSA set up two different security lines for a demonstration Thursday morning at Midway.
In one line, mock travelers showed up with prohibited items such as guns, knives, and large water bottles. Others in the line had laptops that were not out and ready for screeners to inspect, or at least stowed in a checkpoint friendly travel bag. In the other line, the mock travelers had no restricted items, and had their laptops properly stored or ready to be checked.
The difference in wait times was drastic. The ten people who were not carrying any prohibited items got through security in less than two minutes. It took the other group took more than six minutes to get screened.
"In terms of a dangerous item, like a firearm, we're going to have to hold it; and that really, basically, makes one lane ineffective until the firearm is cleared," Howell said.
The union representing TSA screeners have said 6,000 more screeners need to be hired nationwide to have checkpoints fully staffed.
