Overview
- Airports in the TSA Screening Partnership Program, including San Francisco, Kansas City and Orlando Sanford, report normal operations and short waits during the DHS funding shutdown.
- Major hubs that rely on federal TSA officers, such as Houston and Atlanta, posted waits over two hours with more than a third of screeners not reporting for shifts, as national call-out rates topped 10% and over 360 officers quit.
- Contractors say they continued paying screeners under pre-funded federal agreements, with firms like BOS Security and VMD Corp. describing stable staffing and routine checkpoint performance.
- Private screeners operate under TSA oversight, follow the same rules and receive comparable training, though the AFGE union argues that lowest-bid contracting can compromise safety and worker conditions.
- Airports cannot switch to private screening quickly because TSA must grant permission and award contracts, a process that typically takes months to about a year, and TSA—not airports—assigns the approved contractor.