WASHINGTON -- Despite all the grumbling about those federal security screeners, airports are not rushing to replace them with private workers.
Only two airports -- in Sioux Falls, South Dakota and Elko, Nevada -- have applied to the government to switch back to privately employed screeners. And the management at Elko is having second thoughts.
"Are the costs going to outweigh the benefits?" asked Cris Jensen, director of the Elko Regional Airport. "We're not sure."
Advocates of private screeners had predicted that dozens of airports would jump at the chance to make the switch, saying the bureaucracy inherent in a government agency -- the Transportation Security Administration -- has slowed staffing decisions at the country's 450 commercial airports.
Elaine Sanchez, spokeswoman for Las Vegas McCarran International Airport, explained why most airports are sticking with the federal screeners: "In a word, liability," she said.
Sanchez and other airport officials said they are concerned about potential lawsuits: People might sue an airport where private screeners failed to prevent terrorists from launching an attack.
After the September 11, 2001 attacks the government created a fund that paid victims and their families if they agreed not to sue airlines, airports, security companies and others. The participation rate was 97 percent; only about 80 suits arose from the terrorist strikes.
A 2002 law gave limited legal protection to some companies involved in anti-terrorism businesses such as airport screening. Companies that receive a special designation from the Homeland Security Department can be sued, but their customers cannot.
Steve van Beek, executive vice president for the Airports Council International, said many of the airports that his organization represents are still not sure they would have enough protection, despite the law.
In February FirstLine Transportation Security -- an Eastlake, Ohio company that employs private security screeners as part of a trial program at Kansas City (Missouri) International Airport -- was the first screening company to get that designation. Recently Illinois-based Covenant Aviation Security, which employs screeners at San Francisco International Airport and at the Tupelo Regional Airport in Mississippi, became the second.
With the TSA under fire in Congress for its spending practices, FirstLine's president, John DeMell, said he believes more airports are sticking with the federal system because they worry that lawmakers might cut money for private screeners. Washington pays the cost of airport screening.
No big differences perceived
Congress created the TSA after the September 11 attacks and ordered it to replace the privately employed screeners hired by airlines with a better-paid, better-trained federal work force. More than 50,000 screeners were hired in less than a year, though that number has been trimmed to about 45,000.
Congress also ordered five commercial airports to use privately employed screeners -- hired, trained, paid and tested to TSA standards -- to serve as a comparison to the federal employees. Those airports are in San Francisco; Rochester, New York; Tupelo, Mississippi; Jackson, Wyoming; and Kansas City, Missouri.
In a recent report Congressional investigators found problems in both passenger and luggage screening at many airports, regardless of whether the government or private companies handled security.
Mike Marnach, director of the Sioux Falls Regional Airport, said the airport's board of directors voted to switch to private screeners because they think passengers will benefit. "They'll be more responsible to the customer," he said.
Tara Hamilton, spokeswoman for the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, said Dulles International and Reagan National airports might be interested if private screeners were proven to improve security and customer service.
"But we haven't determined that that's the case," she said.
Jeff Fitch, Seattle-Tacoma International Airport's security director, said he would consider converting to private screeners but did not think it would improve the situation.
Email This Page!