Airport security

Gov’t shutdown causes closed checkpoints – and pizza – at airports

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The partial shutdown of the federal government is taking its toll on airports.

On Saturday, Miami International Airport closed one of its security checkpoints because airport officials were worried there wouldn’t be enough TSA employees on duty to keep all the airport’s checkpoints open.

The airport plans to reopen the checkpoint on Monday morning.

On Sunday afternoon, Houston’s George Bush International Airport (IAH), shut down the TSA checkpoint and ticketing counter in Terminal B. The reason? Concern about staffing issues associated with the partial shutdown of the federal government.

If the government shutdown continues, we can expect more of these checkpoint closures to take place. Passengers will be directed to other checkpoints, where lines will no doubt get very long.

And outpouring of pizza

While long lines are surely frustrating for travelers, there is an outpouring of support for the TSA workers, air traffice controllers and customs and border protection workers who are working without pay.

On Friday, Nashville International Airport sent pizzas to TSA employees at the airport working without pay.

And Canadian air traffic controllers showed their support for their American counterparts by sending pizzas as well.

Elsewhere, there’s a pop-up food pantry for TSA employees at Tampa International Airport.

At Your Gate is offering $10 off and waiving the delivery fee for food delivered to TSA employees on duty at Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR). The offer will expand to other airports where the service is available (San Diego International Airport, New York LaGuardia Terminal B, JFK and MSP) later this week.

Federal workers working without pay at Ontario International Airport were treated to a barbecue on Friday. Food was supplied by the Ontario Reign Hockey team and other groups in town.

On Friday, Pittsburgh International Airport served lunch to federal workers at the airport and plans to do so each Friday until the shutdown is over.

Seattle Tacoma International Airport will hold its second information fair on Monday to help federal employees working without pay learn about short term loans and other resources that may be available to them.

And, as we reported earlier, Hudson Group, which operates shops in many airports, is offering a 20% discount off food, beverages and many store products to all TSA and customs employees until the shutdown is resolved.

OTG, which operates retail outlets and restaurants in 10 airports, will offer TSA employees a 50 percent discount on food and beverage through the duration of the government shutdown too.

If you learn of any other efforts underway, please let us know.




Airport police host National Night Out events

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Police departments – including airport police departments – join with their neighborhoods each August 7  to hold National Night Out events to encourage neighbors to get to know each other and to create safer places to live.

The street I used to live on held a picnic each year during Natoinal Night Out and one neighbor rented a bouncy house for the kids. Each year we shared phone numbers and emails. We introduced ourselves around and chose a street captain.

And when there was a serious issue on our block – or if someone just noticed that someone else had left their car lights on – we knew how to get in touch with our neighbors.

So if your street is hosting an event, I strongly encourage you to out there and say hi.

If you’re flying somewhere, stop and chat with airport police and others looking out for your safety.  National Night Out events planned for Washington Dulles International Airport, Washington’s Reagan National Airport  and Los Angeles International Airport.

And don’t be shy about approaching those airport officers. As we’re learning from their entertaining entries in the viral police lip sync challenge, many airport police teams have a great sense of humor.

Know of another airport hosting a National Night Out event? Let me know and I’ll add it to the list.

 

Worms to whales: the wildlife that shows up at airports

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Bearded Seal on runway at Wiley Post-Will Rogers Memorial Airport in Utqiaġvik (fomerly Barrow) Courtesy Scott Babcock, Alaska Dept of Transportation & Public Facilities.

My “At the Airport” column on USA Today this month is all about the wildlife that shows up – uninvited – at airports.

The story details some of the visitors, such as the seal (above) that showed up on the runway during a snowstorm at Alaska’s Wiley Post-Will Rogers Memorial Airport in Utqiaġvik (fomerly Barrow) last year, the wily coyotes that can climb over barbed wire fences and the loons, carbiou, alligators and, mostly, birds that airport wildlife management teams must deal with.

This moose stopped by Jackson Hole Airport in October 2015. Photo courtesy Philip Bollman

To report the story I did a ride along with Nick Atwell, wildlife manager at the Portland International Airport, and talked with wildlife biologists who work with airports around the country. You can read the full column – From worms to whales, the wildlife that worries airports – at the USA Today site, but here are few more fun photos.

Coyotes chased this bear cub across a Colorado airport. USDA Wildlife Services tranquilized, tagged and relocated the cub. Photo_USDA Wildlife Services

 

The USDA’s Wildlife Services staff helps capturs and relocate alligators – some up to 9 feet long – at many southern airports. Courtesy USDA

Buffalo standing outside terminal doors at Yellowstone Airport. Courtesy Jeff Kadlec.

Wild animals at airports

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I’m having a great time learning about the wide variety of wild animals that airports around the country have encountered and the creative ways they have come up with to keep them away from airplanes.

My research and all the photos airports have been sending along will end up in my At the Airport column on USA Today  later this month but sharing a few snaps with you today.

Above – a Great Horned Owl that was caught in a trap meant for smaller birds at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport and below, a nine-foot alligator wrangled by the USDA at a military base in Georgia.

TSA’s Week in Review is dynamite

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Each week the Transporation Security Administration shares a tally of the firearms its officers find at airport checkpoints.

I find that list both fasciniating and frightening.

From June 4 through 10, for example, 78 firearms were found in carry-on bags at airport checkpoints around the country.

Of those 78 firearms, 61 were loaded and 25 had a round chambered.

Alarming? Yes. A record? Not at all.

The guns are scary, but so too are the other prohibited items that TSA tells us travelers try to take on board with them.

For example, last week’s ‘catch’ included the replica Improvised Explosive Device (IED) pictured above that was found in a traveler’s carry-on bag at the Chicago O’Hare International Airport.

It looks like it could be real and TSA reports that after finding this item, the checkpoint was closed down for almost 20 minutes before the Chicago Police Bomb Squad was able to respond and clear the item.

Most people found with firearms in their carryon bags tells the authorities that they just ‘forgot’ they had their guns in the bags they grabbed on the way to the airport. But that replica IED? What were they thinking???

Want TSA PreCheck? Go buy some paper.

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Summer is coming and checkpoint security lines at airports around the country are going to get longer.

So if you haven’t signed up for TSA’s PreCheck program yet, now would be a good time.

Don’t want to take an extra trip to the airport to do that? You may not have to if you’ve got a Staples office supply story nearby.

Staples office supply company and Idemia, the company that has the TSA contract to enroll people in the PreCheck program, have teamed up to set up IdentoGO enrollment centers in 50 Staples stores.

The cost of enrollment in the TSA PreCheck program is $85 and is good for five years at $17 per year.

Need to get new passport photo or a certified birth certificate?  Those IdentoGO Centers at Staples will help with those too.

 And if Staples isn’t in your community, check this site for another place to sign-up for TSA PreCheck.

It’s only February and TSA has set a new record

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It was alarming to learn that during 2017,  the Transportation Security Administration found a record setting 3,957 firearms in carry-on bags at airport checkpoints.

That was 16.7 percent (556 more) firearms than found in 2016, when ‘only’ 3,391 firearms were found.

Will 2018 see a dip in the number of firearms passengers bring to the security checkpoints?

Not likely: It’s only February and another record has been broken: between February 5th and 11th, TSA found a record breaking 104 firearms in carry-on bags. Of those 104 firearms, 87 were loaded and 38 had a round chambered.

The previous week-long record? 96 firearms found during one week in July 2017.

165 guns found at airport checkpoints in 2 weeks. What??

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On the TSA blog each week there’s a report on the number of firearms – and loaded firearms – officers find at airport checkpoints.

The weekly numbers – and images – always alarm me. But this week’s report on the number of firearms found in the past TWO weeks is super alarming: over the past two weeks TSA officers found 165 firearms at airport checkpoints.

79 one week. 86 the week after.

Of those 165 firearms, TSA tells us 144 were loaded (!) and 56 had a round chambered.

Whenever I write about this I get emails telling me not to worry.  “Those aren’t terrorists,” people tell me, “Just innocent ‘regular’ people who forgot they had their guns with them.”

What happens to these people? Often, nothing.

Depending on the state and the situation, travelers are somtimes just told to come back without their gun. Sometimes there’s a fine. Occasionally, an arrest.

You’d think that since by law no passengers are allowed to bring guns into the secure side of an airport – or onto an airpane – the number of people bringing guns to the airport would be decreasing.

But the yearly tallies just go up.

Any solutions??

 

 

 

 

 

Fliers love Orlando Int’l Airport – and other new rankings

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This year Orlando International Airport (MCO) gets top ranking for satisfaction among the “mega” airports in J.D. Power’s 2017 North America Airport Satisfaction Study.

Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport (DTW) came in second and McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas ranked third, with scores of 778, 767 and 765,  respectively, out of a possible score of 1000.

Among large airports, John Wayne Airport in Orange County topped the list with a score of 796, followed by Tampa International Airport (795) and Dallas Love Field (790).

Sacramento International Airport got the highest marks among the medium airports (810), followed by Indianapolis International Airport (807), and Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport (806).

The study, one of several ‘biggies’ that come out each year, ranks traveler satisfaction with mega, large, and medium North American airports by weighin six factors (in order of importance): terminal facilities; airport accessibility; security check; baggage claim; check-in/baggage check; food, beverage and retail.

J.D. Power notes that ratings are up 18 points overall compared to last year’s all-time high, due to a 25-point increase in satisfaction with security checks (thanks to a drop in TSA staffing issues) and more satisfaction with check-in/baggage check (+19 points) and food, beverage, and retail (+15 points).  Self-service bag-check kiosks and other bag-tagging technologies got credit for raising satisfaction with the baggage check process.

Here are the Top 10 airports in each category:

“Mega” airports:

  1. Orlando International Airport
  2. Detroit Metroplitan International Airport
  3. McCarran International Airport
  4. Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport
  5. Denver International Airport
  6. Charlotte Douglas International Airport
  7. Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport
  8. Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport
  9. San Francisco Internaitonal Airport
  10. Seattle-Tacoma International Airport

Large Airports

  1. John Wayne Airport
  2. Tampa International Airport
  3. Dallas Love Field
  4. Nashville International Airport
  5. Portland International Airport
  6. Willliam P. Hobby Airport (Houston)
  7. San Diego International Airport
  8. Reagan National Airport
  9. Salt Lake City International Airport
  10. Baltimore-Washington Thurgood Marshall Airport

Medium Airports

  1. Sacramento International Airport
  2. Indianpolis International Airport
  3. Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport
  4. Jacksonville International Airport
  5. Palm Beach International Airport
  6. Southwest Florida International Airport
  7. Pittsburgh International Airport
  8. Raleigh-Durham International Airport
  9. Buffalo Niagara International Airport
  10. Ontario International Airport

You can see the full lists and the scoring here.