United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby sounded off last week, focusing his ire on the Federal Aviation Administration after thunderstorms were deemed the cause of the cancellation of thousands of U.S. flights last Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. While Kirby blamed airport staffing issues, the FAA said staffing limitations did not play a role in this instance.
Regardless, in several key East Coast hubs, staffing is an issue. Due to Transportation Security Administration staffing shortages at key airports, travelers will face longer lines, which will cause missed flights and missed connections throughout the system and may contribute to a more nightmarish travel and vacation season.
Earlier this year, the FAA said East Coast airports will be the hardest hit, with delays to rise by 45% when compared with those last summer. Staffing shortages and rising consumer demand are driving the problem. Last summer, New York-area airports reported more than 40,000 flight delays, which amounted to the highest yearly percentage of delayed flights in seven years, Business Insider stated in a March article.
More than 20% of flights are arriving late, on average, and currently, 1% to 2% of flights are being canceled. Passenger volumes at TSA security checkpoints are equal to or are exceeding pre-pandemic levels, but airports still don’t have the transportation security officers to move those passengers more efficiently through checkpoints.
Keep in mind, the TSA has a goal that everybody should make it through airport security in 30 minutes or less in standard lanes and 10 minutes or less in PreCheck lanes. Often, waits are much longer.
While the TSA has stepped up efforts to hire more security officers, filling staffing shortages takes time. The recruitment process involves background and credit checks, computer-based testing, training and a physical examination. With the job market still favoring candidates over employers, there simply are more vacancies than qualified people to fill them. The TSA has lost thousands of employees due to retirements, attrition and departures to higher-paying jobs elsewhere.
Pragmatically speaking, it’s in policymakers’ best interest to adopt forward-looking policies to avoid a nightmarish 2023 travel season. They need to pressure administrative decision-makers at TSA and other agencies to get more creative in attracting and retaining security officers at critical hub airports. They need to make it easier for the TSA to offer better pay, benefits and working conditions to attract good employees. Additionally, they need to expedite processes for hiring and onboarding new TSA employees and offer signing bonuses, especially in cities with the largest staff shortages. A commitment to increasing TSA employee salaries can ensure that staffing levels are adequate for future seasons of travel.
Second, policymakers should support innovative policies to move more passengers from standard security to PreCheck security lanes. Doing so would help keep lines short at checkpoints with persistent staffing shortages, since PreCheck lanes require fewer resources than standard lanes.
To encourage more travelers to enroll in PreCheck, the government could decrease or eliminate the fees in certain cases. Last year, the TSA experimented with a modest $7 reduction in the PreCheck enrollment fee with limited success. Other approaches could be more fruitful. Taking actions such as decreasing the renewal fee for travelers with lapsed PreCheck memberships, offering free PreCheck to military veterans and their spouses, and offering a discounted enrollment fee to older passengers would increase PreCheck applications. Notably, travelers 75 and older receive expedited screening in the standard screening lanes — they do not have to remove shoes or light jackets — and therefore have less incentive for enrolling in PreCheck.
The TSA should expand benefits associated with PreCheck so that PreCheck is more attractive for families. For example, the agency now allows children ages 13 to 17 traveling with an eligible parent or guardian with PreCheck to also access PreCheck lanes. (Previously, the policy applied only to children age 12 and younger.) This is a move in the right direction.
Such policy changes would foster a critical economic driver throughout the country, creating jobs and generating significant tax revenue for the government.
For their part, travelers should take certain steps to improve their travel experience and reduce the impact of disruptions. One step people often overlook is booking flights away from the busiest hub airports. Flying in and out of less busy airports circumvents some travel hassles such as long security lines. Regular travelers should look at enrolling in TSA PreCheck, considering that staffing shortages are likely to persist and waiting times in PreCheck lanes are typically less than 10 minutes.
Travelers can take an active role in monitoring flights and security lines in real time. Several apps offer this feature, making it possible to adjust travel arrangements on the fly if need be. The TSA app MyTSA, for example, monitors security checkpoints and waiting times in real time. Enrolling in PreCheck should significantly reduce wait time. And of course, make sure to get to the airport as early as possible.
As America returns to the skies in record numbers this summer, the time is now to take smart actions to avert a nightmare for travelers.
Laura Albert is a professor and Harvey D. Spangler faculty scholar in industrial and systems engineering at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. Her research also focuses on modeling and solving real-world discrete optimization problems with application to homeland security, public services, health care, emergency medical services, critical infrastructure protection, public safety and disaster response and recovery.
