TSA administrator & DFW Int'l Airport CEO prepared for busy summer travel season

NORTH TEXAS (CBSDFW.COM) - TSA Administrator David Pekoske and DFW International Airport CEO said Tuesday they're expecting a busy summer travel season.  

In an interview with CBS 11 News, Pekoske said, "We predict that we're going to be very close to pre-pandemic levels pretty much all through the summer." 

During a news conference to kick-off the season, Donohue said air travel has rebounded to most markets. "Travel to Asia has not rebounded and that was an important market for us. But if you look at international Europe, we believe we'll be record-setting this summer. Domestic, we'll probably be 98 or 99 percent of 2019 and there's a chance we might exceed it." 

Kevin Burke, President and CEO of the Airports Council International - North America, said back on April 25, 2020, about one month after the pandemic began, there were a total of 87,000 people nationwide who went through the TSA security checkpoints. 

On Monday, May 9, that number was two million people. 

The record is 2.8 million people in one day. 

Todd Hauptli, President and CEO of the American Association of Airline Executives, predicted that number could reach three million on one day this summer. 

DFW Airport is now the second largest in the world when it comes to passengers and has been preparing for increased travel. 

By June 1, Donohue said they will have added nine gates in terminals C and D since last year. 

Pekoske said they've prepared too. "We're staffed up and ready to go. We've done everything we can to be ready for the summer." 

He said their standard is to get general passengers through the checkpoints within 30 minutes and TSA Pre-Check passengers in ten minutes or less. "In general, we meet that but there are times that we can't. There's just too many people in a capacity constraint screening environment but we do everything we can to make sure the screening is conducted the way we need it to be for security and safety and the passengers' experience is as good as it can be." 

The TSA Administrator also said the agency continues to upgrade technology to keep passengers moving through the security checkpoints.  

It has been adding the same technology used to screen checked bags to airport security checkpoints for carry-on bags. 

Pekoske said, "Generally, the bag searches process is time-consuming, so that new computer tomography x-ray system will remove some of the requirements to do bag searches and then pat-downs tend to be time-consuming and with the new software upgrade to those machines, we'll do fewer pat-downs." 

In addition, he said they're starting to update the ID verification process for Pre-Check passengers. "What that allows a passenger to do is to take their drivers' license for example and passport and insert it themselves into the machine and then we verify their ID that way and they don't need a boarding pass for our purposes when they use that technology." 

Pekoske said he also wants to remind passengers before they go to the airport, to make sure they're not carrying knives, firearms, and other weapons. 

He also said since the agency stopped enforcing the mask mandate last month following a federal judge's order, Pekoske said there have been fewer incidents related to masks. 

But he said there are also still passengers who've been assaulting flight crews, most of which are alcohol-related. 

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