Marketing Me! Airline Travel Fun part 2

I wrote this entry recently about my experiences as of late flying from U.S. airports. I have had more fun being subjected to the fun TSA and the airlines put us through just trying to get my job done.

It made me think of a real solution to the problems faced by lots of passengers held up by understaffed TSA security lines.

First, nobody shows up unannounced at an airport, they have reservations. Airlines could provide those reservations totals to TSA who then staffs accordingly.

Unfortunately, the rules seem to be different. A recent trip to Denver had a single TSA agent checking boarding passes for a line of hundreds. Meanwhile, each x-ray machine had what had to be 4-6 agents milling around. Perhaps checking boarding passes is the low job and machine screening is the plum position? Who knows.

Just this week, I flew out of Canada. Although there are TSA employees checking outbound passengers at U.S. customs in Canada, Canadian contractors actually handle the screening of passengers' bags. Interestingly, it went faster. However, I will be the first to admit that my experience was subjective and might be different for others.

I wish things were better. TSA has a blog which explains their take (and funny anecdotes about their job) on traveling, but it does not change the fact that the flying public is getting angrier and having less patience over the flying experience.