Following is our regular summary of the latest travel news and best frequent traveler promotions reviewed during the past week.
27.07.2023 - 18:42 / smartertravel.com / Tim Winship / Are You
The long lines, missed flights, and traveler outrage have been front-page news for months. And there’s little prospect that the bottleneck at the TSA’s airport security checkpoints can be ameliorated in time to for the summer travel crush.
It’s gotten so bad that one airline, American, has resorted to hiring its own security contractors to help speed up the processing.
It’s a mess of major proportions.
And now—finally, some would say—someone is being held to account for the misery and lost hours the TSA’s mismanagement has created.
Related:Is Airbnb Killing the Hotel Business?Under intense pressure from the government, from travelers, and from the airlines, TSA administrator Peter Neffenger yesterday announced the firing of Kelly Hogan, a top manager in the TSA’s Office of Security Operations. And O’Hare Airport, where some of the system’s longest lines have been reported, will get a new management team to oversee screening.
Problem solved? Hardly.
As reported by the New York Times, Hogan was paid $90,000 in performance bonuses, during a period that saw the TSA’s performance deteriorate substantially. That suggests that the TSA as a whole has been complicit in the agency’s failures; it’s a systemic problem, not just a rogue employee. Replacing one administrator and reshuffling the org chart in Chicago are band-aids at best.
In a memo to TSA employees, Neffenger was reassuring: “These adjustments will enable more focused leadership and screening operations at critical airports in the national transportation system.”
I don’t buy it. You shouldn’t either.
Reader Reality Check
What will it take to turn around the flailing TSA?
More from SmarterTravel: Compare Uber, Lyft Prices? There’s an App for That Problem or Solution: Which Kind of Driver Are You? Coming to Las Vegas on June 6: Parking FeesAfter 20 years working in the travel industry, and 15 years writing about it, Tim Winship knows a thing or two about travel. Follow him on Twitter @twinship.
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Following is our regular summary of the latest travel news and best frequent traveler promotions reviewed during the past week.
With no sign of relief in sight, the TSA’s inability to effectively and efficiently manage airport security screening promises to remain this summer’s biggest bad-news travel story.
When Muslim Advocates and the NAACP issue a joint letter accusing the U.S. airline industry of racism, it’s big news. And when the NAACP, the “nation’s oldest and largest nonpartisan civil rights organization,” follows that up with an advisory specifically questioning the racial policies of the nation’s largest airline, American, it’s nothing less than a media firestorm. Indeed, all the major news media covered the story exhaustively. And “American Airlines” has been a trending Twitter topic for several days.
Following is our regular summary of the latest travel news and best frequent traveler promotions reviewed during the past week.
Following is our regular summary of the latest travel news and best frequent traveler promotions reviewed during the past week.
Following is our regular summary of the latest travel news and best frequent traveler promotions reviewed during the past week.
Following is our regular summary of the latest travel news and best frequent traveler promotions reviewed during the past week.
Following is our regular summary of the latest travel news and best frequent traveler promotions reviewed during the past week.
Could Spirit, the airline everybody loves to hate, become a bit less hateful? If the company’s new CEO has his way, it will do just that.
In its latest effort to capture the hearts, minds, and expense accounts of the travel universe’s most privileged 1 percent, American is raising the bar for airport lounges.
For U.S. News & World Report, the road from weekly news magazine to publisher of company rankings has been a long and winding one. The key, though, to its shift toward data-driven ratings of companies and institutions was its 1983 publication of “America’s Best Colleges.”
Following is our regular summary of the latest travel news and best frequent traveler promotions reviewed during the past week.