TSA agents think the crewmember lane at airports is a huge security flaw that staff abuse for smuggling

23.05.2024 - 14:23 / insider.com / John F.Kennedy

Airport security officers have concerns over the special crewmember lanes that enable flight attendants and airline pilots to bypass typical passenger screening procedures.

The lanes were implemented in 2011 under the Known Crewmember Program (KCM) — a joint initiative by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), Airlines for America (A4A), and the Air Line Pilots Association International (ALPA).

However, former and current TSA agents told Business Insider they are "terrible," and that cabin crew can be "a bigger flight risk than the passengers themselves."

Criticism of KCM is mounting, particularly after four flight attendants were charged with smuggling millions of dollars in drug money out of the US using the lane at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York.

Charlie Hernandez, 42; Sarah Valerio Pujols, 24; Emmanuel Torres, 34; and Jarol Fabio, 35, were arrested earlier this month. They managed to smuggle $8 million in "bulk cash" between 2014 and 2023, prosecutors said.

Delta Airlines confirmed to NBC News that two defendants worked for them.

Flight attendants can be paid off by drug dealers to smuggle illegal substances or cash and only tend to be found when they are subjected to random searches, the NY Post reported.

"It stands to reason that this [smuggling by flight attendants] is commonly done," attorney Dennis Ring, who represented a convicted flight attendant named Marsha Gay Reynolds, told the outlet.

There have been multiple instances of airline crew being caught after trying to "abuse these privileges," Ben Schlappig wrote in an article for the travel site One Mile At A Time.

"Of course, a vast majority of airline employees follow the rules, though with the volume of people using these checkpoints, there are going to be some bad apples," Schlappig said.

TSA agents, who wanted to remain anonymous due to strict internal rules about speaking to the media, told BI these stories of cabin crew wrongdoing "completely breach the trust that we put in them."

One agent said KCM was "terrible," and some of the crew they had interacted with had "worse attitudes" than passengers that go through regular screening. Another described crewmembers as "cocky."

When passengers accidentally bring something they shouldn't through security, more often than not, it's a mistake, another agent said.

"Crew, on the other hand, know exactly what they are doing," they said.

"I truly do think KCM should be eliminated," said one agent.

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"Time and time again, we have seen that the crew members get so much 'trust' just because they're crew and they're the ones doing the illegal shit."

Most agents said they believed crew should have their own lines and be screened separately but that