By: Mark Dombroff<\/p>\n

The current controversy and unhappiness regarding the TSA is understandable.\u00a0 Prior to 9\/11, passenger screening was the responsibility of the airlines.\u00a0 At each airport, the carriers got together and one airline, acting on behalf of all of them, hired a screening company to staff the checkpoints.\u00a0 There was no TSA, and it was the FAA which oversaw airport security.\u00a0 The FAA job was to monitor and surveil the screening companies.<\/p>\n

In the post 9\/11 world, the TSA was created as part of the Department of Homeland Security and responsibility for all airport security was removed from the FAA.\u00a0 And then the inevitable occurred\u2026the TSA, over the ensuing 15 years, turned into just one more behemoth, dysfunctional government bureaucracy.\u00a0 It also became unionized and about as flexible as a steel rod.\u00a0 The net result has been customer, i.e. the traveling public, service that redefines lousy.<\/p>\n

Now, let\u2019s turn to the FAA, certainly an agency which has its problems, but which, in no small measure, is responsible for the safest airline system in the world.\u00a0 The mission of the FAA is to control the nation\u2019s airspace and, as part of that, to regulate and inspect airlines.\u00a0 Nobody in their right mind asserts the FAA has failed in this mission.\u00a0 Certainly the safety record in the United States bespeaks of its success.\u00a0 That\u2019s not to say that the FAA doesn\u2019t have problems.\u00a0 It does, but that discussion is for another day.<\/p>\n

Keeping the foregoing in mind, let\u2019s forget about abolishing the TSA.\u00a0 How about we use the FAA as a model.\u00a0 Take the day to day screening function away from TSA and put it in the hands of the airports who can hire the best company for their airport.\u00a0 The TSA, like the FAA, will establish minimum standards and procedures, and then monitor, surveil and regulate the companies.\u00a0 The big difference is that there will be greater flexibility at individual airports and, if a company disappoints, its contract won\u2019t be renewed.<\/p>\n

This system has worked pretty well with the FAA and the airlines they regulate.\u00a0 The FAA sets minimum standards (which virtually every airline exceeds and which the FAA has to approve) and then monitors, inspects, surveils and regulates those airlines to insure they meet those standards.\u00a0 The FAA doesn\u2019t build, maintain or fly the airplanes.\u00a0 There\u2019s no reason why the TSA should do the screening.<\/p>\n

The TSA should focus on this oversight role. It should get out of the day to day screening business, i.e. stop flying the airplanes.\u00a0 The TSA has pretty much proven it isn\u2019t good at everything.\u00a0 It\u2019s time for them to recognize that fact and let the example of the FAA\u2019s relationship with the aviation industry in this country provide a path for the way forward.\u00a0 There is no reason why the highest level of safety in the screening process cannot co-exist with expedited lines.<\/p>\n

The biggest obstacle to fixing the problem is the TSA itself, which seems to think that their hiring 800 more screeners is the answer.\u00a0 The answer is not a \u201cband-aid,\u201d but rather radical surgery on a bloated, out of control bureaucracy.