High Speed Airport Security

As we approach the busy summer travel season it seems that the lines at airports are growing by the minute. I guess the only good part is that most of us don't have heavy winter coats to remove for scanning in addition to removing our laptops, our shoes, our belts, and anything else that needs to be seperately scanned for security personnel. Am I complaining about all this? Not in the least. I know that the folks in the TSA and such are doing this for our security as well as those who are flying along with us. But it seems that we all need something to complain or comment on and security lines seem to be the thing.

My parents and I dropped my brother off at Dulles Airport on Saturday for his return trip to San Francisco. Having travelled between to coasts so many times, he's an old hand now at the routine of unloading his gear and then reloading it when going through security. He's flown back to San Francisco at various times and on different days of the week and generally his waits have not been that bad. Of course it could just be his luck that he ends up at the airport at times when there is less rush. Business fliers tend to populate the airports very early in the day or very late in the day so the crowd they generate is sporadic. And despite the rush, the security personnel work as efficiently as possible to get people scanned and through the lines as quickly as possible.

However, this gets harder and harder to do when security personnel and funding to these agencies is cut on a regular basis. Sure every airport has 30 security checkpoints, but what good are they if you have the personnel needed to work at only 3 of them? People in line habitually hem and haw over the fact that there are people standing around but they fail to understand that there are certain standards which they are following in terms of processing passengers. If they could go faster then I'm sure they would. But remember one thing, they are taking these efforts for your safety and mine, so if it takes a bit longer because they only have a handful of screeners, suck it up and wait!

These same guys who complain about wait times and 'unnecessary scans' will be the first to jump up and complain the next time someone manages to slip a knife or other weapon on board a plane. At that time they will complain that there isn't enough security or that it isn't good enough. At that time the knee-jerk reaction will be that 'we need more security'. The airports will do what they can, they'll add more security lines. And the TSA will do what it can and attempt to cover all those new lines with a handful of personnel and a rapidly shrinking budget.