A bill recently landed in Congress that wants to eliminate the Transportation Security Administration entirely. The proposal sounds simple enough—hand airport security back to airlines, cut government involvement, and supposedly make air travel less of a hassle. But aviation security experts who actually understand how airports work are sounding alarm bells. The TSA does far more than just check your boarding pass and wave you through a metal detector, and getting rid of it could create problems that most travelers haven’t even considered.
Your PreCheck membership could become worthless
More than 20 million Americans have paid for TSA PreCheck, expecting to skip the long security lines for at least five years. But if TSA disappears, nobody really knows what happens to that membership. Would airlines create their own versions? Would you need separate memberships for Delta, United, Southwest, and every other carrier you might fly? The whole point of PreCheck is that it works everywhere in the country, at every airport, with every airline. Take away that central system and you’re looking at a confusing mess where your fast-track privileges might only work on certain flights.
The program works because TSA maintains a centralized database of vetted travelers. Airlines don’t currently have the infrastructure to manage background checks, fingerprinting, and ongoing monitoring of millions of passengers. Creating separate systems for each airline would be expensive and complicated. Some carriers might decide it’s not worth the trouble, leaving their passengers without any expedited screening option at all. Smaller regional airlines almost certainly couldn’t afford to offer their own version, which means flying with them would always mean longer waits at security.
Security standards would become inconsistent across airports
Right now, TSA sets the same rules for every airport in America. Liquids in containers under 3.4 ounces, shoes off, laptops out—the procedures are identical whether you’re flying from New York or North Dakota. That consistency exists because one federal agency manages security nationwide. Before TSA existed, airports hired contractors who paid minimum wage and saw turnover rates above 100 percent at some locations. These screeners had minimal training and airports often found it cheaper to pay fines for failing security tests than to hire better employees.
If airlines take over security, each one could set different rules based on what they think is necessary or what saves them money. American Airlines might require one set of procedures while Spirit Airlines does something completely different. Flying through different airports would mean learning new rules every time. Business travelers who fly frequently would face constant confusion about what’s allowed in their carry-on depending on which airline they’re using that day. The predictability that makes modern air travel manageable would vanish.
The brain drain problem nobody’s talking about
TSA agents receive daily intelligence briefings from the FBI and other agencies worldwide. That information gets shared across the agency so screeners know what current threats to watch for. Former TSA administrator John Pistole pointed out that eliminating the agency means losing all those trained personnel who understand these threats. You can’t just hire thousands of new private security workers and expect them to immediately spot the same dangers that experienced TSA agents watch for every day.
Private contractors would need to recruit and train an entirely new workforce. TSA recently implemented pay equity that aligns employee salaries with other federal workers, making the jobs more competitive. Private security companies typically pay less with fewer benefits, which means they’d struggle to attract qualified candidates. The people staffing airport checkpoints would be starting from scratch without the background knowledge or experience that current TSA agents have built up over years. Missing a genuine threat becomes much more likely when screeners don’t know what they’re looking for.
TSA Cares assistance would likely end
TSA Cares is a free service that helps travelers with disabilities, medical conditions, and parents with young children get through security. You can request a dedicated officer who assists from the curb all the way to your gate. Anyone who’s tried managing a stroller, diaper bag, and toddler through airport security knows this service can be a lifesaver. If TSA goes away, there’s no indication that airlines would continue offering this type of personalized assistance.
Airlines operate on tight profit margins and look for ways to cut costs wherever possible. Providing one-on-one assistance through security wouldn’t generate revenue, so most carriers would probably skip it. Passengers who currently depend on TSA Cares would be left to figure out airport security on their own, which could make air travel impossible for some people with mobility issues or medical equipment. The service isn’t flashy or well-known, but losing it would directly impact thousands of travelers who need that extra help.
Advanced technology development would stall
TSA runs the Transportation Security Integration Facility, which develops and tests new screening equipment including artificial intelligence systems. These AI tools reduce false alarms, identify threats more accurately, and cut down on unnecessary pat-downs. The agency also operates the Transportation Security Laboratory that tests improvised explosive devices screeners might encounter. Airlines don’t have research facilities like this, and creating them from scratch would cost enormous amounts of money that carriers aren’t likely to spend.
The agency has invested over two billion dollars in CT scanners for airports, with hundreds already deployed. Los Angeles International Airport became the first to use Credential Authentication Technology at all checkpoints, and TSA ordered 1,500 second-generation systems. Private companies working independently wouldn’t coordinate on technology standards, which means airports could end up with incompatible equipment from different vendors. Innovation would slow down significantly because no single entity would be responsible for testing and approving new security technology nationwide.
Airlines would lobby against stronger security measures
Before TSA existed, the FAA oversaw airport security while airlines paid for the actual screening. This created what security experts call agency capture—airlines would lobby the FAA against implementing stronger security measures because upgrades would cost them money. Jeffrey Price, who owns an airport security training firm and worked as a screener in the 1980s, explained that airports would hire contractors at the lowest possible price. It was actually cheaper for airports to pay fines for failing security tests than to hire better screeners who could pass those tests.
Airlines have legitimate business interests that don’t always align with security priorities. If a new screening technology would slow down boarding or cost money to install, airlines have financial reasons to oppose it even if the technology would make flying safer. When airlines controlled security before, they had direct influence over what measures got implemented. Moving TSA from the Department of Transportation to the Department of Homeland Security in 2003 was specifically meant to separate security decisions from the aviation industry’s business concerns.
The intelligence coordination problem
One of the biggest failures before September 11, 2001, was that different government agencies maintained their own terrorist watch lists and didn’t share information effectively. The FAA had limited access to intelligence that other agencies possessed. TSA was created partly to solve this problem by serving as a central point for collecting and distributing intelligence about transportation threats. The agency’s Transportation Security Operations Center monitors threats in real time and tracks armed law enforcement and air marshals throughout the system.
On September 11, 2001, aerial defense was coordinated by the FAA’s Air Traffic Control System Command Center, which wasn’t designed for that purpose. TSA’s operations center was built specifically to handle security threats. The Secure Flight program matches passengers against the no-fly list before they board planes, identifying known or suspected terrorists. These aren’t simple functions that can just be reassigned to someone else. If TSA disappears, who takes over intelligence coordination? How would information get shared between airlines, airports, law enforcement, and federal agencies? Nobody has good answers to these questions.
Legal liability would shift to airports and airlines
If a security failure occurs under TSA’s watch, the federal government bears the legal responsibility. But if airports or airlines run security and something goes wrong, those companies could face massive lawsuits. The three airports where hijacked flights departed on September 11, 2001, were all sued. Airlines and airports would need significantly higher insurance coverage to protect against potential liability, and those costs would likely get passed on to travelers through higher ticket prices or airport fees.
Airports don’t have the budget to take on security as a core function. Most airports operate with tight margins and depend on revenue from parking, concessions, and gate fees. Adding security costs would strain their finances considerably. Airlines are in similar situations—the industry has notoriously thin profit margins and carriers regularly struggle financially. Neither airports nor airlines have strong incentives to spend more money than absolutely necessary on security when that money comes directly out of their operating budgets and doesn’t generate any revenue.
The Screening Partnership Program already exists
TSA created the Screening Partnership Program in 2004, which lets airports use private contractors for screening instead of TSA employees. These contractors follow TSA testing, training, performance standards, and equipment requirements. Out of more than 400 eligible airports, less than five percent participate in the program. The largest participating airports are San Francisco International and Kansas City International. If privatized screening was clearly better, more airports would have switched by now.
Some politicians cite a 2019 study claiming that Screening Partnership Program airports outperform TSA-run checkpoints. But security experts say there isn’t enough solid evidence to support completely privatizing airport security nationwide based on a handful of airports. Even airports using private contractors still operate under TSA oversight and standards. The procedures passengers go through are identical whether TSA employees or private contractors staff the checkpoint. Completely eliminating TSA oversight would be a very different situation than the current partnership program.
Abolishing TSA sounds straightforward until you examine what the agency actually does beyond the security checkpoint. The intelligence work, technology development, standardized procedures, and assistance programs all depend on having a centralized federal agency managing aviation security. Before TSA existed, that fragmented system had serious problems that the agency was specifically created to fix. Going back to that old model ignores the lessons learned from past security failures and could make air travel less safe and more complicated for everyone who flies.
