TSA could use more bomb-sniffing dogs
Passengers may see a faster screening process
Passengers at the USA’s smallest airports will continue to go through security checkpoints just as they have for years. Passengers who’ve been sniffed by bomb-sniffing dogs may soon get a separate security line at some U.S. airports.
Transportation Security Administration chief David Pekoske revealed those details during a conversation with USA TODAY’s editorial board Wednesday in McLean, Virginia.
A report by CNN this month suggested the TSA was considering doing away with screening at about 150 of the country’s smallest airports. That’s not going to happen, the agency’s administrator said emphatically.
“We’re not doing that. Real simple,” Pekoske said. “We looked at that and decided that was not an issue worth pursuing. Off the table.”
The idea, studied as a theoretical option in the TSA’s annual budget review, would have allowed the agency to cut costs while focusing most of its resources on bigger U.S. airports that account for the majority of the nation’s passenger traffic.
The idea studied since 2011 was that the TSA could drop federal staffing at airports with planes seating up to 60 passengers and save $115 million per year. Those airports serve about 10,000 passengers per day and require nearly 1,300 TSA workers, who could be shifted to larger airports.
Thirty of the USA’s busiest hub air- ports accounted for 72.1% of U.S. enplanements in 2017, according to Airports Council International-North America.
There are some changes that passengers could soon see. Pekoske said new 3D scanners, which are in about 15 airports, could go into wider use, possibly allowing passengers to move through airports with their shoes on and without removing liquids or other items from their bags.
Limits on the liquid amounts – a maximum of one quart-sized plastic bag with no container bigger than 3.4 ounces – will remain.
One big change fliers could see within the next year involves canines.
“I’m trying to put more canines out into the system, so they’re more present and we don’t just have them patrolling the individual checkpoints at high periods of passenger volume,” Pekoske said.
He said that could allow the agency to offer expedited screening to some passengers who’ve been sniffed by bomb-sniffing dogs.
“If you’re swept by a canine, you do have lower risk,” Pekoske said. “The whole idea is put the right level of security based on the risk that we think a passenger suggests.”
Instead of funneling those passengers into Precheck lines, airports where the agency has space for additional lanes would give those fliers their own lines, Pekoske said.
He said a prototype phase will go from “late fall maybe into early next year, just to see how it works.”