Transportation

The number of firearms confiscated at airports by the Transportation Security Administration tripled in July compared to a year ago even though air travel is a quarter of what it was last year at this time, the TSA reported Monday. TSA said its officers had detected 15.3 guns per million passengers last month compared with 5.1 guns last July – and that’s with air travel dropping 75% year on year.

Andrew Revere Sr. flew to Cincinnati last week, visiting his fifth airport since March. His American Airlines flight marked the first time he was told to wear a mask. “I don’t want to make anybody uncomfortable. So, if they say to wear a mask then I’m going to put it on,” said Revere, an Atlanta resident who played pro football in Mexico until the coronavirus pandemic put an end to his season on March 14.

With far fewer people flying as a result of of journey restrictions in the course of the coronavirus pandemic, airport safety screeners are naturally discovering fewer guns in carry-on baggage.

This just in: The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) announced they are preparing to start taking passengers’ temperatures as a way to move forward and help increase safety and prevent COVID-19 infected passengers from boarding airplanes. While this sounds good in theory, it will do nothing to make air travel safer for passengers. 

Recently I flew to D.C. to visit my family and had to get up at 4:30 a.m. to make my flight in Manchester because the next flight was way too late. Between yawns, I muttered deprecations about American Airlines all day.

On Wednesday the Transportation Security Administration released what appeared to be a staggering statistic: 4,432 guns were seized at U.S. airport checkpoints in 2019. At 278 airports, passengers wore or tucked these firearms—87 percent of them loaded—into their carry-on luggage. This marks an increase from the 4,239 firearms confiscated in 2018 and set a new record in TSA’s 18-year history.

The Transportation Security Administration intercepted a record number of firearms at airport security checkpoints last year in what the agency’s leader called a “deeply troubling” trend.

The increasing number of travelers choosing to fly, especially during the travel heavy summer season, has lead to longer lines at airport security, even for TSA PreCheck passengers. Sheldon Jacobson, INFORMS Fellow and Founder Professor in Computer Science in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, discusses how the TSA can better utilize the guidelines and procedures established by the PreCheck, and encourage more travelers to enroll, to accommodate new changes in airport security and increase screening effectiveness.