The feared uprising of passengers and the possibility of mass opt-out requests never materialized. It seems that though the American public have no desire to have their “junk” touched, they would rather get home as quickly and hassle-free as possible to have Thanksgiving dinner with family.
The smooth TSA operations turned out to be a chance for early thanks during this Thanksgiving holiday travel period.
I spent the early morning from 5:30 to 10 a.m. at the airport speaking with passengers and assessing the situation at the gate locations where these whole-body scanners were in operation.
Just as we predicted, TSA moved more passengers through the old-system magnetometers and seemed to have the sensitivity of those machines set so that there were not so many false positives. Even whole-body scanner operations seemed to be moving faster than usual.
The bottom line: Security lines during this Thanksgiving crush moved better than during the normal morning airport rush hour.
Every passenger I spoke with entered the TSA inspection line with a bit of trepidation. Most had no idea of what to expect after hearing the network news and hearing pundits who really know little about travel other than the fact that they travel themselves.
Though TSA never announced any changes in their procedures, the agency did make a concerted effort to insure that there were no bottlenecks.
Next, we hope that the agency takes another look at their mission. Is it really necessary to confiscate Swiss Army knives, special golf clubs, scissors, cork screws and knives?
Charlie Leocha is the President of Travelers United. He has been working in Washington, DC, for the past 14 years with Congress, the Department of Transportation, and industry stakeholders on travel issues. He was the first consumer representative to the Advisory Committee for Aviation Consumer Protections appointed by the Secretary of Transportation from 2012 through 2018.
