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TSA

Remember those long TSA lines? Poof! They're gone ...

Ben Mutzabaugh
USA TODAY
Passengers at O'Hare International Airport wait in line to be screened at a Transportation Security Administration (TSA) checkpoint on May 16, 2016 in Chicago, Illinois. Waiting times at the checkpoints today have been reported to be as long 2 hours.

Remember those long airport security lines that became a big travel story earlier this year?

They appear to have faded away, a welcome development for fliers after the loud public outcry that reached its peak just ahead of the busy summer travel season.

In Seattle, the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport says “more staff and new customer service strategies turned aside worries of long security lines from earlier in 2016.”

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The improvement there came even as the airport has set monthly passenger records every month this year. 

“At the beginning of summer, we set a goal of 20 minutes or less for peak-time waits in TSA security lines and with a few exceptions, we worked with our airline partners and the TSA to achieve this goal,” Sea-Tac Managing Director Lance Lyttle says in a Wednesday statement. “We upped our game and intend to keep it that way as Sea-Tac projects serving several million more passengers this year compared with 2015.”

That trend appears to be playing out across the country.

In Chicago – another city where long Transportation Security Administration lines made for big headlines – the backups have subsided.

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The Chicago Tribune writes “wait times at O'Hare International Airport are less than 10 minutes, down from May's two-hour waits that left some frustrated travelers stranded overnight after they missed flights.”

Officials from both Chicago and the Transportation Security Administration talked up their efforts at a Tuesday press conference there. What did they credit for the improvement? Increased staffing and better coordination between TSA and Chicago’s airport and airline officials.

"TSA's efforts here have been heroic in addressing the problem," said Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who the Tribune notes had previously been “sharply critical of the agency.”

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“When things get messed up, people always report it. When they get fixed and addressed, they should also be reported,” Emanuel explained, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.

Of course, the effort also was aided by the nation's airports and airlines. The nation’s three biggest carriers – American, Delta and United – all pitched in millions of their own dollars to help with staffing. They also paid to help institute other measures meant to quicken the queues at their busiest airports. Similarly, a number of airports hired contractors to help retrieve bins and direct queues -- an effort aimed at allowing TSA workers to focus on screening.

The overall effort appears to have paid dividends for fliers across the nation.

"It has truly been a collaborative effort between the airports, TSA and the airlines," Christopher Bidwell, vice president for security at the Airports Council International -- North America trade group, says to Travel Weekly.

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TSA administrator Peter Neffenger noted the dramatic improvement since May came even as passenger numbers were spiking not only in Seattle, but at airports across the country.



“This is the busiest travel season on record, Neffenger said during the Tuesday press event in Chicago, according to CBS Chicago. “In fact, some of the days this summer are bigger than what we used to consider the big days of Thanksgiving. So we’ve had some of our largest travel days ever, and I think it was just a matter of getting resources back in, and working with Congress to do so.”

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