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TSA Screeners Showing Up at More Airports

Aired August 06, 2002 - 14:09   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Beginning today, government workers will be screening bags at Boston's Logan airport, and seven other airports across the U.S. It's just one more move to quell our fears since September 11.
CNN's Patty Davis now joins us live from Washington with more on this. Patti, what does this mean to me, as I go through the airports now, these new screeners?

PATTY DAVIS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, first of all, you are going to be able to identify those federal screeners by their white shirts, and they are going to have a big Transportation Security Administration patch right on their arm. Now the TSA says that these new federal screeners will mean better security for passengers. The screeners have to go through background checks themselves, and they're more highly trained than the current private screeners. Forty hours of classroom training, 60 hours on the job training. They have also been trained to be customer friendly, a TSA spokeswoman telling me that you will see more friendly, more polite screeners. They will look you in the eye, and the goal -- the bottom line goal here, make your wait at the airport no more than 10 minutes as you wait to go through that screening process -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Well, Patty, that is all good news, I have got to tell you. What a big relief. You do get a little attitude now and then, don't you?

DAVIS: Absolutely.

PHILLIPS: All right. These federal screeners, when do they have to be in place, and do you think they will make the deadline?

DAVIS: Well, federal screeners have to be in place by November 19. That is the big deadline for hiring all of them. The TSA says that it will indeed make that deadline. Now as of today, federal screeners are on the job at 19 airports across the country, eight just added today.

There are still, though, more than 400 airports to go, an unbelievable number. So far, the TSA says that it has hired a third of the 30,000 passenger screeners that it will need. The agency is holding job fairs all over the country to try to attract screeners. Salary as much as $35,000 if you have a lot of experience, Kyra. I may even be applying. It sounds pretty good to me.

PHILLIPS: Really. Not a bad deal. Now, I heard, though, that there is trouble -- there has been trouble in the hiring. Is that true, and why?

DAVIS: There has been. There was a hearing a couple of weeks ago on Capitol Hill in which that was revealed. The trouble really hadn't been a shortage of people applying, it is getting those people to show up for tests. They have to be able to bend over, lift 40 pounds, you know those heavy suitcases they may have to life from time to time. Fifty to 60 percent are failing the aptitude test as well. The TSA was having particular problems hiring in New York, Chicago, and Boston, but a spokeswoman saying today that hiring in New York and Chicago now has picked up. Boston, however, is still a challenge -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: All right. Patty Davis. Do me a favor, stay where you are. We like you here at CNN. All right. Thank you very much.

DAVIS: Thanks.

PHILLIPS: All right. Patty Davis.

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