TSA chief: Help is on the way to address long airport lines

WASHINGTON (AP) — The head of the Transportation Security Administration said today the beleaguered agency will add 768 new screeners by mid-June to deal with increasingly long airport security lines that have caused passengers to miss flights even before the busy summer travel season.

Peter Neffenger told a House committee that a combination of factors contributed to the added waiting time to pass through security screening: more people are flying this year and fewer people than anticipated have applied for the government's PreCheck program, which expedites screening for those who have submitted to a background check and pay an $85 fee.

The agency expects to screen 740 million passengers this year, a 15 percent increase over 2013, Neffenger said. That increase came amid a 12 percent drop in the TSA's workforce and "a renewed focus on security," he said.

"We have a challenge this summer, which we are aggressively meeting head-on," Neffenger told the House Homeland Security Committee.

TSA officers are being moved to staff checkpoints at the busiest airports at the busiest times, Neffenger said, and the agency is launching an incident-command center that includes officials from major airlines and industry associations. The center will track daily screening operations and shift officers, canine units and other resources to shorten lines, Neffenger said.

An incident in which 450 passengers were stranded in Chicago overnight because long security lines made them miss their flights was preventable and should not happen again, Neffenger said.