TSA cuts wait times over July 4 weekend

By Hugo Martin

Los Angeles Times (TNS)

If taking a commercial airline flight over the Fourth of July weekend was not the headache you expected, you can thank a concerted effort by the Transportation Security Administration to keep security checkpoint lines moving at the nation’s busiest airports.

Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson reported recently that the TSA screened 10.7 million travelers from June 30 to July 4, marking the highest volume travel days since 2007.

Despite the huge crowds, Johnson said the average wait time at TSA checkpoints was less than 10 minutes.

The wait times for TSA Precheck lines – the expedited program for travelers who have submitted background information in advance – was less than five minutes.

By comparison, a study by the research firm J.D. Power calculated that the average wait times at the nation’s biggest airports in 2015 ranged from 15 to 17 minutes.

Johnson said the TSA cut times by reassigning more than 100 TSA officers and volunteers to boost staffing at the seven busiest airports.

He also gave credit to airlines that have assigned employees to help with “nonsecurity” duties at TSA checkpoints to help move the queues along.

But if Johnson was expecting kudos from relieved passengers, he must have been disappointed to see that social media sites over the holiday weekend were instead crammed with references to a disabled teenage girl who was bloodied after an incident at a TSA checkpoint in Memphis, Tenn.

The teen and her mother filed a lawsuit last month claiming that the girl was assaulted by Memphis International Airport police and TSA officers.