6 ms·

I am in no way an expert on the subject, but a bulk of the TSA/Flyer friction seems to come from bad customer service. The TSA basically only needs to work har

I am in no way an expert on the subject, but a bulk of the TSA/Flyer friction seems to come from bad customer service. The TSA basically only needs to work hard enough to not get fired. They have a 95% failure rate when it comes to their 'primary' job [1]. Recently, Delta airlines designed and built, in only 2 months, a new style of TSA screening points that moves 30% faster [2]. It would be interesting to give them some competition. Imagine if the department was split into the TSA and the TSB. Give them equal funding and presence in the airport. Flyers pay a screening fee and pick A or B, and then are screened by that agency. I bet they would shape up overnight. [1] http://www.latimes.com/opinion/topoftheticket/la-na-tt-tsa-airport-security-charade-20150608-story.html http://www.latimes.com/opinion/topoftheticket/la-na-tt-tsa-a... [2] http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/06/11/481694459/new-airport-security-lanes-in-atlanta-are-30-more-efficient-tsa-chief-says http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/06/11/481694459/...

dalke 10y ago
"Bad service" is the surface problem. Quoting from the article: > The House of Representatives voted to cut TSA funding in 2011. Sequestration cut TSA funding in 2013. > In 2014, Congress passed a TSA fare increase, and used the overwhelming majority of that not to fund the TSA, but to pay down the national debt. When the TSA fare went up in 2014 (as did the prices of tickets it was attached to), Congressional funding cuts to the TSA meant the TSA cut 3,500 screener positions. And in 2015, the House voted to increase TSA funding, but cut TSA employee pay. Pay poorly, and you'll get poor service. As for your proposal, who will pay for the extra overhead of two teams? Will small airports need twice the staff?
- DougWebb 10y ago
  By 2011, there had already been a lot of pushback against the TSA, so I'm sure part of the rationale for the cuts was to force TSA to stop growing out of control like it had been. A leaner budget could force the TSA to become leaner, which in a rational world would mean it would have to become more efficient to do its job. Of course this is government, so the TSA just did its job less. The flip side, redirecting increases in TSA fares away from the TSA and towards the general budget, is also typical government behavior: can't raise taxes, so raise "fees" instead and use the proceeds like a tax.
  - dragontamer 10y ago
    Starve the beast has literally never worked. I wonder why people believe that cutting budgets will somehow lead to better results. It never happens.
    - aianus 10y ago
      > I wonder why people believe that cutting budgets will somehow lead to better results. It never happens. Poor results are easier to stomach when they're cheap. See: any cheap product ever.
    - mikeash 10y ago
      It works all the time, you just have to realize that the goal isn't better results, the goal is getting elected by convincing people that government doesn't work.
      - newjersey 10y ago
        It is so frustrating. Even if people believe in small government, the problem to tackle would be to cut government spending, not taxes. :( When you boil down a conversation though the result is usually people want lower taxes for themselves and the idea of a small government is usually just a smokescreen.
  - dalke 10y ago
    You say "typical government behavior". Please note that the problems you point out are limited to the US. At least, it's not been my experience when at airports in Europe. Perhaps you think they are "typical" because you've been on the receiving end of decades of propaganda to convince you the government is incompetent, there's nothing you can do about it, and the only solution is the "free market"? To start with, why can't the government raise taxes?
    - DougWebb 10y ago
      You're making huge assumptions about me and my political beliefs. Incorrect assumptions. The US federal government is bad about this, but they're not the only ones that do it: effective tax rates here are just as high as in many European countries, but most of the taxes aren't called 'tax'. There are fees and tolls and surcharges on many living expenses, and more that get hidden in higher prices for many products. That's why I said that adding a TSA fee to airline tickets, but not using the money for the TSA, is typical behavior. I wish the taxation system was honest and transparent. I wish the money was used competently and efficiently. But the political system here is screwed up I don't think those are achievable goals. And unfortunatly it's led to having an incompent fascist as a leading presidential candidate.
gsnedders 10y ago
> Recently, Delta airlines designed and built, in only 2 months, a new style of TSA screening points that moves 30% faster [2]. Note that such security layouts are pretty much standard issue for any new installation in Europe, and have been for coming on for a decade now. (Also, in Europe, my experience is the belts are typically longer so you always have had multiple people loading trays at once, which I rarely see in the US.)
- ortusdux 10y ago
  Exactly. Presumably the TSA has been aware of this new system for a decade and it took an airline, concerned over customer satisfaction, to pay to get the ball rolling.
- jandrese 10y ago
  The bottleneck is the X-Ray itself though. When I fly the trays are always backed up waiting for their turn through the machine. Allowing more people to load trays doesn't help much.
Gibbon1 10y ago
I think the TSA's primary job is that of a common door lock. Door locks aren't designed to stop everyone, they are designed to dissuade amateur and opportunistic thieves. The old TSA did a fairly good job of dissuading your average nutter from trying to hijack aircraft. What we are asking the TSA to do is stop people who are trained and sponsored by states or quasi state actors. Instead of asking the TSA to stop these people we need to go after their handlers, even if they are members of our own clandestine agencies.
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  > I think the TSA's primary job is that of a common door lock. Door locks aren't designed to stop everyone, they are designed to dissuade amateur and opportunistic thieves. The old TSA did a fairly good job of dissuading your average nutter from trying to hijack aircraft. Pre-TSA non-federal security screening (heck, even pre-1990 gulf crisis security screening of the type adopted in, IIRC, something like the late 1970s in response to the hijackings of the 1960s and 1970s) did that pretty well.
mattkrause 10y ago
I dislike waiting in line (obviously), but I really hate that the wait times are wildly unpredictable. Sometimes it's five minutes, sometimes it's an hour, and the only way to be sure is to arrive at the airport far ahead of time. This has always struck me as weird since they know almost exactly how many people will be passing through a checkpoint at any given time: the vast majority of tickets are bought >1 week in advance and I'm pretty sure airlines share passenger data with the TSA already. Given this, they should be able to adjust the staffing accordingly to make the wait times incredibly predictable--at least when I fly, all of the lines are rarely open. Heck, you could even make things slightly better by texting passengers a "security forecast" the night before: "Screening lines are expected to be {short,typical,long} tomorrow. Please arrive {1 hr, 90 min, 2+hr} before your flight.
- newman314 10y ago
  Think about what you just proposed. A "security forecast" would completely defeat the purpose of the security line in the first place. Who would "attack" if it's a high security day?
  - aianus 10y ago
    You misunderstood him. He meant 'low wait time', 'medium wait time', 'high wait time'. Everyone would still be going through the same screening process as usual.
    - mattkrause 10y ago
      Thanks--I thought that was pretty clear, but I guess not....
      - newman314 10y ago
        My bad. Misinterpreted the "security forecast".
- ortusdux 10y ago
  Wait time reporting is a mess right now. Some airports have wait time systems: http://www.atlanta-airport.com/Passenger/waittimes/ http://www.atlanta-airport.com/Passenger/waittimes/ The TSA has a mobile ready site with wait times for some airports: https://apps.tsa.dhs.gov/mytsa/status_home.aspx https://apps.tsa.dhs.gov/mytsa/status_home.aspx Some private companies are in the market. Not sure where the data comes from: http://www.whatsbusy.com/airport http://www.whatsbusy.com/airport I like Blip, who has an implemented an elegant solution in JFK: https://techcrunch.com/2015/08/24/this-technology-monitors-our-cellphones-to-calculate-wait-times-at-airports/ https://techcrunch.com/2015/08/24/this-technology-monitors-o... The problem is that there is not all that much money in reporting wait times. Right now the wait times are impacting passenger's experience to the point that I think the airlines might foot the bill to cover a Blip like system and fold it into their apps.
jedberg 10y ago
The main issue with your proposal is that security and customer satisfaction are in opposition with each other. The team that would win would be the less secure team. ie. Take it to the extreme -- one agency would just say "here walk on through", as that would be the easiest. Unless you suggest that they still have to follow all the silly rules, but then you haven't really gained much except efficiency at following useless rules.
- jandrese 10y ago
  Right now the TSA loses badly on both aspects, so even if they only had a win in 1 then it's still an improvement.
- nikanj 10y ago
  That "walk through" team would easily match TSA's current score at 0 terrorists caught in over a decade.

dalke 10y ago

"Bad service" is the surface problem. Quoting from the article: > The House of Representatives voted to cut TSA funding in 2011. Sequestration cut TSA funding in 2013. > In 2014, Congress passed a TSA fare increase, and used the overwhelming majority of that not to fund the TSA, but to pay down the national debt. When the TSA fare went up in 2014 (as did the prices of tickets it was attached to), Congressional funding cuts to the TSA meant the TSA cut 3,500 screener positions. And in 2015, the House voted to increase TSA funding, but cut TSA employee pay. Pay poorly, and you'll get poor service. As for your proposal, who will pay for the extra overhead of two teams? Will small airports need twice the staff?

DougWebb 10y ago
By 2011, there had already been a lot of pushback against the TSA, so I'm sure part of the rationale for the cuts was to force TSA to stop growing out of control like it had been. A leaner budget could force the TSA to become leaner, which in a rational world would mean it would have to become more efficient to do its job. Of course this is government, so the TSA just did its job less. The flip side, redirecting increases in TSA fares away from the TSA and towards the general budget, is also typical government behavior: can't raise taxes, so raise "fees" instead and use the proceeds like a tax.
- dragontamer 10y ago
  Starve the beast has literally never worked. I wonder why people believe that cutting budgets will somehow lead to better results. It never happens.
  - aianus 10y ago
    > I wonder why people believe that cutting budgets will somehow lead to better results. It never happens. Poor results are easier to stomach when they're cheap. See: any cheap product ever.
  - mikeash 10y ago
    It works all the time, you just have to realize that the goal isn't better results, the goal is getting elected by convincing people that government doesn't work.
    - newjersey 10y ago
      It is so frustrating. Even if people believe in small government, the problem to tackle would be to cut government spending, not taxes. :( When you boil down a conversation though the result is usually people want lower taxes for themselves and the idea of a small government is usually just a smokescreen.
- dalke 10y ago
  You say "typical government behavior". Please note that the problems you point out are limited to the US. At least, it's not been my experience when at airports in Europe. Perhaps you think they are "typical" because you've been on the receiving end of decades of propaganda to convince you the government is incompetent, there's nothing you can do about it, and the only solution is the "free market"? To start with, why can't the government raise taxes?
  - DougWebb 10y ago
    You're making huge assumptions about me and my political beliefs. Incorrect assumptions. The US federal government is bad about this, but they're not the only ones that do it: effective tax rates here are just as high as in many European countries, but most of the taxes aren't called 'tax'. There are fees and tolls and surcharges on many living expenses, and more that get hidden in higher prices for many products. That's why I said that adding a TSA fee to airline tickets, but not using the money for the TSA, is typical behavior. I wish the taxation system was honest and transparent. I wish the money was used competently and efficiently. But the political system here is screwed up I don't think those are achievable goals. And unfortunatly it's led to having an incompent fascist as a leading presidential candidate.

gsnedders 10y ago

> Recently, Delta airlines designed and built, in only 2 months, a new style of TSA screening points that moves 30% faster [2]. Note that such security layouts are pretty much standard issue for any new installation in Europe, and have been for coming on for a decade now. (Also, in Europe, my experience is the belts are typically longer so you always have had multiple people loading trays at once, which I rarely see in the US.)

ortusdux 10y ago
Exactly. Presumably the TSA has been aware of this new system for a decade and it took an airline, concerned over customer satisfaction, to pay to get the ball rolling.
jandrese 10y ago
The bottleneck is the X-Ray itself though. When I fly the trays are always backed up waiting for their turn through the machine. Allowing more people to load trays doesn't help much.

Gibbon1 10y ago

I think the TSA's primary job is that of a common door lock. Door locks aren't designed to stop everyone, they are designed to dissuade amateur and opportunistic thieves. The old TSA did a fairly good job of dissuading your average nutter from trying to hijack aircraft. What we are asking the TSA to do is stop people who are trained and sponsored by states or quasi state actors. Instead of asking the TSA to stop these people we need to go after their handlers, even if they are members of our own clandestine agencies.

dragonwriter 10y ago
> I think the TSA's primary job is that of a common door lock. Door locks aren't designed to stop everyone, they are designed to dissuade amateur and opportunistic thieves. The old TSA did a fairly good job of dissuading your average nutter from trying to hijack aircraft. Pre-TSA non-federal security screening (heck, even pre-1990 gulf crisis security screening of the type adopted in, IIRC, something like the late 1970s in response to the hijackings of the 1960s and 1970s) did that pretty well.

mattkrause 10y ago

I dislike waiting in line (obviously), but I really hate that the wait times are wildly unpredictable. Sometimes it's five minutes, sometimes it's an hour, and the only way to be sure is to arrive at the airport far ahead of time. This has always struck me as weird since they know almost exactly how many people will be passing through a checkpoint at any given time: the vast majority of tickets are bought >1 week in advance and I'm pretty sure airlines share passenger data with the TSA already. Given this, they should be able to adjust the staffing accordingly to make the wait times incredibly predictable--at least when I fly, all of the lines are rarely open. Heck, you could even make things slightly better by texting passengers a "security forecast" the night before: "Screening lines are expected to be {short,typical,long} tomorrow. Please arrive {1 hr, 90 min, 2+hr} before your flight.

newman314 10y ago
Think about what you just proposed. A "security forecast" would completely defeat the purpose of the security line in the first place. Who would "attack" if it's a high security day?
- aianus 10y ago
  You misunderstood him. He meant 'low wait time', 'medium wait time', 'high wait time'. Everyone would still be going through the same screening process as usual.
  - mattkrause 10y ago
    Thanks--I thought that was pretty clear, but I guess not....
    - newman314 10y ago
      My bad. Misinterpreted the "security forecast".
ortusdux 10y ago
Wait time reporting is a mess right now. Some airports have wait time systems: http://www.atlanta-airport.com/Passenger/waittimes/ http://www.atlanta-airport.com/Passenger/waittimes/ The TSA has a mobile ready site with wait times for some airports: https://apps.tsa.dhs.gov/mytsa/status_home.aspx https://apps.tsa.dhs.gov/mytsa/status_home.aspx Some private companies are in the market. Not sure where the data comes from: http://www.whatsbusy.com/airport http://www.whatsbusy.com/airport I like Blip, who has an implemented an elegant solution in JFK: https://techcrunch.com/2015/08/24/this-technology-monitors-our-cellphones-to-calculate-wait-times-at-airports/ https://techcrunch.com/2015/08/24/this-technology-monitors-o... The problem is that there is not all that much money in reporting wait times. Right now the wait times are impacting passenger's experience to the point that I think the airlines might foot the bill to cover a Blip like system and fold it into their apps.

jedberg 10y ago

The main issue with your proposal is that security and customer satisfaction are in opposition with each other. The team that would win would be the less secure team. ie. Take it to the extreme -- one agency would just say "here walk on through", as that would be the easiest. Unless you suggest that they still have to follow all the silly rules, but then you haven't really gained much except efficiency at following useless rules.

jandrese 10y ago
Right now the TSA loses badly on both aspects, so even if they only had a win in 1 then it's still an improvement.
nikanj 10y ago
That "walk through" team would easily match TSA's current score at 0 terrorists caught in over a decade.