Government seeks to boost TSA officers, airport screening

WASHINGTON -- The secretary of homeland security is requesting Congress allow another shift of $28 million within the Transportation Security Administration to convert 2,784 officers from part-time to full time, which will allow screening 82,000 more passengers per day.

The request from Jeh Johnson, which could be approved or rejected by the congressional appropriations committees, comes on top of a shift of $34 million approved earlier this month to allow the hiring of 768 officers by June 15, and more overtime.

"In the face of increased air traffic volume, we will not compromise aviation security," Johnson said in a statement emailed to USA TODAY on Thursday. "We are quickly and aggressively surging resources to keep travelers moving through airports, and to keep them safe."

That initial request received Senate approval the same day, but House lawmakers spent a week reviewing it.

The funding shifts were aimed at reducing wait times that stretched to three hours at Chicago O'Hare and other airports. Thousands of travelers have missed flights at airports nationwide in the last two months.

The lines resulted from a combination of fewer screeners, more passengers and tighter security.

TSA looks at automated bins, real-time data to deal with lengthy lines

The most recent request joins a number of other steps the Department of Homeland Security is taking, in partnership with airlines and airports, to address wait times, Johnson said. Among them:

-- Bringing in more canine teams to screen 40,000 more passengers a day at the country's seven busiest airports;

-- Soliciting about 150 volunteers to accept temporary reassignments from less busy airports;

-- Creating "optimization teams" at the country's 20 busiest airports to address wait times; and

-- Creation of an Incident Command Headquarters at Transportation Security Administration headquarters to more quickly see national trends and address them.