This year saw the busiest summer ever for the Transportation Security Administration, the organization has announced.
Between the Memorial Day weekend and the Labor Day weekend, TSA checkpoints processed about 239 million travelers. The period saw 35 days during which over 2.4 million travelers were screened, with the busiest day having been the Friday before Independence Day, which saw 2.64 million travelers processed.
It all points to the growing importance of sophisticated passenger processing technologies, particularly biometric identification like the kind used in the TSA’s PreCheck pre-screening program. While the vast majority of travelers were processed in under 30 minutes, the TSA says that 99.6 percent of its PreCheck members waited less than ten minutes at the airport.
The program surpassed five million members this summer, and is now poised to further expand pending the approval of the TSA Modernization Act, a piece of legislation that moved to Senatorial consideration this week. The controversial bill also aims to expand the Customs and Border Protection agency’s ability to biometrically scan travelers, perhaps most notably in the area of domestic flights, and could ultimately lead to greater collaboration between the security-focused CBP and the TSA and its efficiency-focused PreCheck program.
–
October 6, 2017 – by Alex Perala
Follow Us