Airport staffers bypass checks

Feds let some work, get badges before they have full clearance.

Hartsfield-jackson International Airport has been allowed to hire workers and issue them badges for secure areas of the airport without completing full background checks because of delays in the process, federal officials said Thursday.

According to a memo from the airport to airlines, airport tenants, contractors and others, the U.S. Transportation Security Administration issued “regulatory relief ” in the wake of the delays, allowing them to issue the badges before full security threat assessments have been completed.

TSA said all new employees still have their identities verified and are checked against a watch list before receiving their badges.

The memo said the employees must still get the full clearance “at some point,” and if they are rejected, the badge will be deactivated.

“To allow for a continuity of operations, TSA has provided airports and airlines with interim regulatory relief,” TSA spokesman Jon Allen said in a statement. “At no time was security at risk.”

Relief from regulations was available to airports that needed it, but not all of them did, Allen said.

The TSA has not indicated how many airports took advantage of the change, or how long employees may work without the full security clearance.

Hartsfield-jackson is in the process of adding hundreds of new employees to help operate its new international terminal, which is scheduled to open next month.

What led to the delays in security threat assessments and criminal history background checks was a nationwide change this month in the requirements for how to process background checks.

The change affected requests submitted through a transportation security clearinghouse run by a nonprofit arm of the American Association of Airport Executives, according to the TSA.