TSA and Middle Eastern airlines — two stories that need substance

This week, two big articles have been published by national media — The New York Times featured a story about long lines at TSA checkpoints and The Washington Post reported on the rise of the Middle Eastern airlines. Both need a bit of background and a strong consumer perspective.

The rise of the Middle Eastern Airlines
The rise of the Middle Eastern airlines is a function of the shift in economies of the world. The US airlines and European airlines have focused on the European-American axis for the bulk of their profits. Certainly, US airlines all but ignored flights to Africa and southern Asia, as well as the Middle East.

While the US airlines were sleeping and seemingly oblivious to the shifting economics of the world, the Middle Eastern airlines focused on creating a group of hubs that would link the western world with Africa, the Middle East and southern Asia. That combined with the development of larger and longer range aircraft changed the balance of airline power.

The Middle Eastern airlines — Emirates, Etihad, and Qatar — took advantage of the growing southern hemisphere middle class and built hubs that connected Europe and the Americas with these new fast growing regions.

At the same time, US airlines were dealing with bankruptcy, focused on mergers, and abrogating their service to these regions to their alliance partners. These alliance partner flights all connected in Europe via London, Paris, Frankfurt or Amsterdam, for the most part. The America to Europe to the Africa/Middle East/Southern Asia routes became non-competitive in terms of time. Basically, the routes via the Middle East hub were faster and used less fuel.

Today, US airlines are attempting to get their government to ban expansion of the Middle Eastern airlines so that they can continue with their longer, more expensive routes and second class service. Basically, while complaining that the Middle Eastern airlines are being subsidized, US airlines are asking for the mother of all subsidies. And, while complaining that the growth of the Middle Eastern airlines is abnormal, they ignore the realities of the world’s most rapidly growing economies, all served by these networks. Frankly, based on economic growth, there is still room for more competition from US airlines, but they have other priorities.

The airline actions are pure protectionism and are only supported by the airlines and their labor unions. Every other stakeholder, from airports to tourism bureaus and from FedEx to Boeing and Chambers of Commerce, are on the side of continuing with the current Open Skies Treaties that make this open aviation network possible.

So far, the US Government has not limited US flights of Emirates Airlines, Etihad and Qatar.

Long lines at TSA
The scare tactics of long TSA lines are totally unnecessary and unjustified. With an aviation system that is operating at more than 85 percent load factors, there are no additional crowds that are going to be packing into the airports. Basically, every day is the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. Claims that the congestion is caused by an increase in passengers are bogus.

TSA should be able to deal with this and has plenty of money and resources to do so. The issue is mismanagement and, if it is too little money, that is the fault of Congress, not the flying public. This is a fiasco completely of TSA and Congress’s making.

Last year’s budget deal almost doubled the TSA security fee charged to every passenger. Plus, in a congressional legerdemain, the approximately $500 million once paid into the system by the airlines was eliminated, leaving passengers footing the entire bill.

Worse, Congress then moved one half of the increase in TSA fees (about 25 percent of the total collected) into the general fund to decrease the deficit. It was one of the first times that a specific fee for a budget item was diverted away from the purpose for which it was assessed.

Now, there are howls for more money. Wait, there is plenty of money if Congress would allow TSA to use all of the money it collects. However, even with passengers waiting for close to an hour and a half in security lines, Congress has not moved the diverted funds back to TSA security funding.

Plus, at the same time, TSA has restricted random passengers from using the PreCheck lanes unless they have paid their fees for that service. In some airports, PreCheck lanes have been closed because of a lack of eligible passengers. This is a double blow to the system — not only are those who have paid for expedited service denied their faster lanes, but the main TSA lines do not have a relief valve to cull the crowds waiting for their security checks.

Let’s face it, airport security checks are 99 percent theater. The real security checks take place long before passengers get to the airports. Let’s get TSA to begin using common sense to solve these problems rather than allowing this mismanagement to become a cause for another unjustified increase in passenger fees.

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