TSA ditches Gold+ privatized airport security program

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) announced Monday it will phase out its new Gold+ private airport screening program, opting instead to optimize its existing Screening Partnership Program (SPP).

TSA unveiled the change as part of its Horizon 25 Strategy, named in honor of the agency’s 25th anniversary. The strategy will home in on modernizing TSA checkpoints, elevating the traveler experience and hardening multimodal transportation security, the agency noted.

TSA launched the Gold+ program earlier this year, allowing airports to enter partnerships with private contractors to handle their security and screening operations. Agency officials said private security firms would be able to tailor security measures for individual airports, while complying with overarching federal standards.

But TSA is shelving the short-lived initiative in favor of an “evolved” SPP, through which 20 airports outsource screening services to private companies — with the federal agency overseeing operations.

Kansas City International Airport, Orlando Sanford International Airport and San Francisco International Airport are among the airports participating in the public-private program, according to TSA .

The agency noted Tuesday the evolved SPP will “better harness the role of the private sector in delivering a safer, more secure, and more efficient aviation system.”

TSA Administrator David Cummins, whom the GOP-controlled Senate confirmed to the post last month, said President Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin have entrusted him “with the task of modernizing” the security-focused agency.

“In its first 25 years, this agency has performed its critical Homeland Security mission with dedication and excellence,” Cummins said in the release. The new TSA administrator has experience in the private sector, and was the director of operations management for the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah.

“As we look forward to the next 25 years, we must constantly work to stay ahead of evolving threats and deliver a Golden Age of Travel,” Cummins added. “Through the Horizon 25 Strategy, we will build a TSA that is agile, resilient and ready for tomorrow’s challenges.”

He later said, “TSA does not have to choose between a secure checkpoint, an efficient checkpoint, and an elevated passenger experience. Through Horizon 25, TSA can, and will, deliver all three at once.”

While the Gold+ program required vendors to provide their own screening equipment, private screening vendors at airports enrolled in the SPP must utilize TSA equipment. The agency’s federal security director is still in charge of security, incident management and stakeholder relations, TSA notes .

Tampa International Airport, after conducting a review of the Gold+ program, said Monday it had elected to keep screening operations “exclusively” with the TSA. That garnered praise from Everett Kelley, the president of the American Federation of Government Employees, a union representing 47,000 TSA officers.

“TSA Gold+ is a major departure from our country’s current aviation screening security system, which has kept the flying public safe for nearly 25 years and should be applauded instead of abandoned,” Kelley said in an AFGE release . “Tampa airport officials made the right call, and I hope other airports thinking of privatizing their security functions will follow suit and stay with TSA.”

The government union filed a lawsuit earlier this month to compel TSA to turn over records related to the since-spiked program, which it accused the agency of developing and promoting to contractors “quietly” without notifying employees, congressional lawmakers or airport authorities.

During the record-long government shutdown last fall, TSA employees went weeks without pay, with call-out rates soaring and more than 1,000 agency officers leaving the force entirely.

That sparked an increase in airport security wait times across the country, with the situation repeating itself this past winter and spring during a 76-day shutdown of the Homeland Security Department.