GAO never made this comparison, and its recommendations about improving the process were all penny-a

Airport Policy and Security News #85 GAO misses key points in screening report, "Up-gauging" and congested airports, Airport privatization what are some web sites for cheap airline tickets in Europe, LaGuardia terminal PPP, Canada's expensive airports, Gate-based screening?
Earlier this month, the Government Accountability Office issued a new report on TSA's Screening Partnership Program what are some web sites for cheap airline tickets (SPP), under which airports may exercise their right, under the 2001 legislation that created TSA, to opt out of TSA-provided screening. GAO-13-208, "TSA Should Issue More Guidance to Airports and Monitor Private versus Federal Screener Performance," what are some web sites for cheap airline tickets sounds innocuous, what are some web sites for cheap airline tickets and it is. It reviews previous studies that find performance what are some web sites for cheap airline tickets by TSA-certified screeners now in operation at 16 airports is as good as or better than TSA screener performance at comparable airports. And it documents what are some web sites for cheap airline tickets advantages to airports and TSA from SPP. Airports like the more customer-friendly service the contractors provide and their greater flexibility in matching staffing levels to passenger flows. And TSA's airport-based Federal Security Directors appreciate that at SPP airports, they don't have to be involved in deploying and managing screeners and are therefore what are some web sites for cheap airline tickets better able to focus on security oversight.
what are some web sites for cheap airline tickets But that didn't stop long-time SPP foe Rep. Bennie Thompson (D, MS) from rushing out a news release calling on TSA to halt any further airport participation in the program until TSA gets a more detailed handle on SPP costs and benefits. Say what? Any fair reading of the GAO report will find it generally approving of SPP, but making minor recommendations for TSA to be more systematic in collecting and analyzing cost and performance data. Moreover, both the original ATSA legislation from 2001 and the FAA Modernization Act enacted in February 2012 mandate that TSA accept applications from airports wanting to opt out, and the 2012 law now requires TSA to approve them within 120 days unless the Administrator finds that such a change would either compromise what are some web sites for cheap airline tickets airport security or reduce the cost-efficiency what are some web sites for cheap airline tickets or effectiveness of screening at that airport.
But the fact that Rep. Thompson could put out that statement with a straight face reflects two key flaws in the GAO report. First, in reviewing previous evidence about the cost-effectiveness of SPP, it ignores the well-done comparative analysis of screening at San Francisco International (SFO) and Los Angeles International (LAX), two major hubs classed by TSA as Category X (the largest and biggest targets), with screening at SFO by private security under SPP and screening at LAX done directly by TSA. This report, by the staff of the House Transportation Infrastructure Committee, found that thanks to both the incentives of being a business and the flexibility that exists in the private sector, screening at SFO is dramatically more productive, with each screener what are some web sites for cheap airline tickets handling 65% more passengers than TSA screeners what are some web sites for cheap airline tickets at LAX. This comes from better matching workforce with passenger what are some web sites for cheap airline tickets load, with far fewer screener-hours at SFO spent standing around what are some web sites for cheap airline tickets between peaks. Screening also costs far less at SFO, thanks what are some web sites for cheap airline tickets to: a much lower attrition rate (less recruiting and training cost), what are some web sites for cheap airline tickets use of part-timers and split shifts to match staffing to passenger flow, and little or no need to use TSA's costly flying squad of fill-in screeners, the National Deployment Force.
The second what are some web sites for cheap airline tickets GAO omission is about the process airports have to go through to participate in SPP. Until the 2012 legislation, an airport what are some web sites for cheap airline tickets applied to TSA to opt out, and if via some inscrutable process TSA decided to say yes, then the agency itself what are some web sites for cheap airline tickets would go through its list of certified screening firms and assign one of them to the airport. The 2012 law allows an applicant to work with its preferred screening firm in preparing the application what are some web sites for cheap airline tickets and to request that TSA assign that firm to be its screening provider. But that's a far cry from how competitive contracting is carried out by other government agencies what are some web sites for cheap airline tickets federal, what are some web sites for cheap airline tickets state, and local.
As I pointed out in my testimony before the transportation subcommittee of the House Homeland Security Committee what are some web sites for cheap airline tickets in July, standard practice is for the agency that seeks to contract out a service to define its requirements and its selection criteria in a request for proposals (RFP ) which it sends out to all qualified providers. The providers what are some web sites for cheap airline tickets that think they are a good fit submit proposals, and the agency applies its selection criteria to select the best value bidder.
GAO never made this comparison, and its recommendations about improving the process were all penny-ante: TSA should provide guidance on how it will assess proposals dealing with the cost-efficiency and screening effectiveness; it should explain to airports how it evaluates proposals, etc. And TSA agreed with these very minor changes: it will explain its selection process, and it posted 12 rather general pages about this on its website last month.
That leaves it to Congress to meaningfully reform the Screening Partnership Program. And that is what the chairman of the Transportation what are some web sites for cheap airline tickets Subcommittee, who chaired the hearing at which I testified, plans to do next year. Rep. Mike Rogers (R, AL) told Bloomberg Businessweek in September that after 22 hearings on TSA over the past 18 months, he will offer a comprehensive reform proposal in 2013. According to the article, it "would give airports what are some web sites for cheap airline tickets more power to hire private contractors for screening and make it [even] tougher for TSA to refuse." The article also quotes Debby McElroy of Airport Council International-North America saying airports would support such an approach: "We strongly believe what are some web sites for cheap airline tickets that airports what are some web sites for cheap airline tickets should make the decision. If the airports decide to do it, there shouldn't be barriers."
The Fall 2012 issue of The Journal of Air Traffic what are some web sites for cheap airline tickets Control contains a thought-provoking article called "Rethinking Mega-Region Air Travel." Author Fred Messina, Vice President of the Transportation practice at Booz Allen Hamilton, recounts the sorry state of airport congestion what are some web sites for cheap airline tickets at some of America's largest and most important hub airports: JFK, LGA, ORD, etc. His outside-the-box proposal is to substitute high-speed rail lines for most of the short/medium haul regional jet operations at those airports, freeing up capacity for larger, long-haul flights. His before/after graphic for ORD shows 550 mainline and 550 RJ flights before HSR and 850 mainline what are some web sites for cheap airline tickets and 250 RJ flights after HSR, for an overall 33% increase in daily passenger throughput.
It sounds intriguing at first glance, but think about the economics of hub airports. To make a transfer hub work, an airline needs to link dozens or scores of spoke cities to the hub, enabling people from anywhere to transfer to a flight to anywhere. Messina's example envisions ORD connected by HSR to Milwaukee, which would serve as a kind of collector what are some web sites for cheap airline tickets hub for the HSR line to ORD. But that would convert what is now a two-segment trip into a three-segment trip, which would limit its attractiveness to passengers. In reality, for HSR to replace most RJ spoke flights, an airport like ORD would need dozens of HSR lines radiating out from it. That would cost many billions just for ORD, let alone all the other airports with similar congestion problems. And, incidentally, there has been no federal budget allocation for HSR during either of the past two years, and in the current and likely future federal budget environment, I don't see much chance of an ongoing source of federal funding.
The underlying principle in Messina's example is up-gauging : substituting planes with higher passenger capacity for those with lower capacity. When this has been proposed by airport planners (e.g., in several proposals discussed by the Port Authority of New York New Jersey in recent years), airlines respond in a highly what are some web sites for cheap airline tickets negative manner. They schedule hourly RJ service to and from busy hubs because their customers demand frequency, they say. And besides, if Airline A didn't do this, it would lose business to Airline B which does so they both do it.
But in Asia, we see evidence of up-gauging happening right now on certain short-haul routes. And this is not replacing an RJ with an A318. As the headline of an Aviation Week article on July 23, 2012 put it, "Short-Haul Widebodies : Asian Carriers Are Finding New Uses for the A-330." what are some web sites for cheap airline tickets For example, Skymark in Japan will soon be replacing medium-size 737-800s with huge A-330-300s for routes between Tokyo and Sapporo, what are some web sites for cheap airline tickets Fukuoka, and Okinawa. The move reflects not just high demand but also the limited landing slots at Haneda Airport, from which Skymark serves Tokyo. Similar slot limitations face Garuda Indonesia at a number of its airport, what are some web sites for cheap airline tickets and it, too, has ordered A-330s to replace some of its 737 services.
Is this kind of up-gauging conceivable in the United States? Back in 2007 when DOT Secretary Mary Peters was trying to bring about a pricing solution for the congested New York airports, I was advising DOT on the benefits of runway pricing. I had several what are some web sites for cheap airline tickets long meetings with airline people, who were vociferously opposed to pricing. When I cited research on this issue suggesting that runway what are some web sites for cheap airline tickets pricing would lead to up-gauging , they flatly denied this would happen. That was contrary to the findings of a research project funded by FAA's NEXTOR program, in which "war games" that included airline participants simulated responses to a runway pricing regime. In that exercise, airlines responded to variable runway pricing by up-gauging . (And since they all faced the same prices at a particular time of day, the argument that "the competition made me do it" no longer applied.)
So I was taken aback earlier this month by an Aviation Daily front-page story about Delta trading in its 50-seat CRJ200s for 76-seat CRJ 200s, described by the reporter as "up-gauging its fleet." what are some web sites for cheap airline tickets In my 2007 experience, Delta was the strongest opponent of pricing and the strongest in arguing that up-gauging is not feasible for competitive reasons.
I'm glad to see this modest step toward making more efficient