With the arrival of the summer travel season, airports and airlines are experiencing unprecedented passenger volumes, which means that most flights are filled or near capacity. This trend of higher passenger volume will not abate anytime soon.
With higher demand, the airlines, the Federal Aviation Administration and the Transportation Security Administration will be pushed into uncharted territory. So what is needed to keep pace with this unprecedented demand?
The TSA screened more than 3 million passengers on July 7. The TSA faced similar volumes on May 24, June 9, June 14, June 24, June 27 and June 28. More such days are certain to happen this year. This uptick in volume demands a risk-based security strategy that more finely matches security resources with passenger risk.
Notably, time reductions at every step of the screening process translate into higher passenger throughput. For example, every second saved on a passenger when screening 3 million passengers translates into a reduction of 833 hours of total screening time.
How can the TSA find such time? One way is encouraging more passengers to enroll in TSA PreCheck, the poster child for risk-based security. Whether that means reducing the cost of enrollment, setting up enrollment centers at nonairport locations to ease access or working with airlines to provide airline loyalty program benefits that come with PreCheck status, this should be a top priority.
The TSA also is rolling out facial recognition to authenticate passenger credentials and confirm passengers’ identity.
On the downside, the CT scanners being used at most airports to scan carry-on bags have operated at slower speeds than the X-ray machines they replaced. This issue will need to be resolved, with artificial intelligence certain to play a role.
Air traffic control continues to get negative attention, and calls for more air traffic controllers abound. However, the system itself needs to be rethought. This is where AI can play an important role. AI systems cannot replace air traffic controllers, but they can support controllers’ work and make their jobs more efficient and less burdensome.
Incorporating AI into air traffic controller operations can ease the burden on controllers. An incremental process of adding AI capabilities is needed to improve airport operations and even create additional capacity around congested air corridors.
If the airlines are to handle an ever-growing population of travelers, they need to carve out policies and procedures that are effective and flexible enough to address the different scenarios that invariably arise. Airlines understand that not every flight delay or cancellation is the same. Some are within airline control, such as airplane mechanical issues, and some are not — weather and air traffic control, for example. Some are more nuanced, such as flight crew rest limitations.
The current model incentivizes airlines to blame the weather or air traffic control on every delay or cancellation, an easy and immediate way to avoid responsibility.
To build a cooperative relationship between airlines and the DOT, any rules must ultimately place passengers first. For the airlines, this means offering more flight options, including regional airports that have seen significant cuts in service, post-pandemic. Enhancing FAA incentive programs would be a good first step in this direction.
Three million passenger screening days are fast approaching, and they will become more ubiquitous in the future. The TSA is making great strides to meet the challenge. The DOT, including the FAA, can do better. The airlines must also step up and become part of the solution. Using passengers as pawns in airline and government conflicts is not the answer.
All stakeholders should be committed to delivering a better product. The time to act is now, not in the aftermath of a crisis, when there is a dearth of sensible thinking and an abundance of overreaction and finger-pointing. Passengers deserve better.
Sheldon H. Jacobson is a professor of computer science at the University of Illinois. He wrote this for the Chicago Tribune.
