Rahm credits ‘ heroic’ effort by TSA for easing summer travel
Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Tuesday credited a “heroic” effort by the much- maligned Transportation Security Administration for turning the May meltdown at O’Hare and Midway airports into a summer travel success story.
“When things get messed up, people always report it. When they get fixed and addressed, they should also be reported,” Emanuel told a news conference at O’Hare.
Passengers who missed flights and slept on cots after waiting an average of 98 minutes to get through security in May breezed through TSA checkpoints during peak travel times in an average of 7 minutes in July, the mayor said.
Last week, O’Hare hit a “record low” of 4 minutes, which made it the “best- performing large hub airport in the system,” Aviation Commissioner Ginger Evans said.
Same goes for Midway, where the average peak waiting time is down to 10 minutes, compared with 55 minutes in May.
The dramatic improvement is the product of reinforcements.
Since the May fiasco that prompted Congress to appropriate more funding for TSA, the number of canine teams at O’Hare has tripled. The TSA also added 99 screening officers and converted 260 part- time screening officers to full time to accommodate the summer travel surge.
At Midway, where a security line in May stretched all the way out to the CTA’s Orange Line station, 53 screen- ing officers were added, 29 part- timers were converted to full time and two temporary canine teams were deployed during rush periods.
On Tuesday, Emanuel ap- plauded TSA Administrator Peter Neffenger for being a “man of his word” and solving a problem in Chicago that could have had ripple effects across the nation.
The mayor also credited his decision to issue twicea- month status reports on O’Hare and Midway waiting times “to keep people informed and keep the pressure on, to be honest.”
“With the pressure on, the TSA performed. All of their employees performed,” Emanuel said.
“Time is one of the most important commodities all of us try to manage. And TSA’s effort here has been heroic in addressing a problem and giving us the resources.”
Emanuel said the job is not done. Congress needs to make certain that the “re- sources applied over the last three months are not fleeting” and travelers “never experience what they experienced back in May.”
“It’s not like air travel is decreasing. It is constantly increasing, which means the Congress this September has to make the funding for TSA permanent so that the gains we’ve seen are also made permanent,” Emanuel said.
Neffenger agreed. “We need the resources to meet the demand. That was one of our biggest challenges. And we’re working very closely with members of Congress to ensure that we can maintain those resources,” he said.