On the Transportation Security Administration’s 10th anniversary, TSA and American travelers still have a lot of work to do on their relationship. So says a recent survey commissioned by the U.S. Travel Association, the results of which association CEO Roger Dow shared earlier this month at a press conference at Washington Reagan National Airport.

About two-thirds of travelers are satisfied with the job the TSA is doing on security, but 80 percent say that the most unpleasant parts of flying have to do with security checkpoints. Their biggest gripes:

• 72.4 percent chose “people who bring too many carry-on bags through the security checkpoint”
• 68 percent chose “the wait time to clear the TSA checkpoint”
• 62.3 percent chose “having to remove shoes, belts and jackets at the TSA checkpoint”
• 42.5 percent chose “TSA employees who are not friendly”

U.S. Travel suggested that improving the checkpoint process could encourage Americans to fly more often, and indicated that both TSA and airlines could play a role in easing some of the headache that the security process induces. Airlines could make it easier to enroll in the new trusted-traveler program PreCheck and help reduce the number of carry-on bags going through passenger checkpoints (we’re looking at you, ever-increasing checked-bag fees).

Travelers’ impressions of TSA aren’t all bad, the survey showed. A majority believe the agency is on the “right track” with PreCheck, the decision to eliminate pat downs for children, software upgrades that replace personal body images with a generic body image and a decision to phase out the removal of shoes.

Photo: Inha Leeks Hale

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Congressional dysfunction could soon burden passengers and airlines with $18 billion in new airport fees.

Congress debt negotiation plan

As part of the ongoing negotiations on raising the U.S. debt limit before an August 2 deadline, Congress has been mulling over a plan to double the airport security fee for passengers, and add a $25 departure fee per flight.

The airport security fee of $2.50 per enplanement (maximum of $10 per round trip) for passengers was put in place at U.S. airports after 9/11, to partially pay for Homeland Security operations. Congress now wants to double this fee, which will raise an additional $15 billion over a 10-year period.

Congress also wants to extract another $25 as a departure fee from every commercial and private plane taking off from any airport. This fee, charged directly to the airlines, will raise another $3 billion in new revenue.

Milking the aviation sector and Pension Benefits Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) for $27 billion was apparently a component of the deficit-reduction plan discussed by Vice President Joe Biden and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA). The image above is part of a set of slides outlining the full plan.

The aviation industry’s lobbying machine has swung into high gear to stop Congress from imposing the fees, even though the proposal is just one among several on the table and up for discussion. Congress hasn’t as yet reached an agreement on any revenue hikes.

“This is absolutely unacceptable; we should advance a tax policy that encourages air service to grow, not contract,” said Air Transport Association (ATA) President and CEO Nicholas E. Calio. “Airlines are critical to the nation’s economic health.”

The National Business Aviation Association (NBAA) set up a free legislative action hotline, (877) 727-5074, for citizens to call their representatives to oppose user fees in any debt-ceiling legislation.

Several  aviation organizations also jointly sent a letter (pdf) to all members of the U.S. House and Senate, urging them to abandon the $25 departure fee.

Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA) President and CEO Craig L. Fuller: ”Bad ideas, like bad pennies, have a habit of turning up again and again in Washington. User fees are a bad idea that hurts an entire industry, the economy, and the nation. They simply make no sense.”

General Aviation Manufacturers Association (GAMA) President and CEO Pete Bunce: “User fees have crippled general aviation in Europe and the last thing we want to see in the U.S. is user fees growing the federal bureaucracy.”

These same organizations are also worried about a tax hike for corporate jet users, which would raise another $3 billion by extending the depreciation schedule for private jets to seven years, instead of the current five years.

Put together with a doubling of the airline security fee and the new departure fee per flight, it amounts to a $21 billion tax hike on the aviation industry and its consumers. If enacted, it will trigger fare hikes, a drop in air travel and lower plane sales.

Slide: Public Domain

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Not like there aren’t enough reasons to pile on the TSA, but there’s one more area of concern. The TSA’s spending has spiraled beyond reasonable limits, with $14 billion being spent so far on 20,900 contracts.

TSA puffer device

A huge part ($8 billion) has been spent on new technology, with around $800 million spent on devices for screening baggage, shoes, liquids, etc.

But the one that has got them under the spotlight this time is the money being spent on airport screening technology for passengers. 500 of the new full body scanners will be in operation at airports by the end of 2010. The number doubles to 1000 in 2011, which means half of all airport security checkpoints will be covered.

The TSA wants to spend a further $1.3 billion next year on airport screening technologies, which would take the spend on full-body scanners to $2.4 billion. This huge spending on a single technology is causing a few worries about whether it’s like the puffer episode all over again.

The TSA spent $30 million on puffers aka Explosive Trace Portals (ETPs) starting with a pilot program in 2004 and followed it up with a bigger purchase of 207 units, with 94 units deployed at 37 airports. Way it worked was that passengers stepped into the machine and it would blow puffs of air to detect traces of explosives. It ended up as a complete failure and the machines have since been discarded and warehoused.

But the TSA isn’t worried that the full-body scanners could end up in the same warehouses as the puffers, and neither do they seem to be worried about a report which suggests that TSA checkpoints are unable to detect weapons 70% of the time.

In fact, they’re going all out to use new technology and improve on existing ones to reduce airport hassles and privacy concerns for passengers. This includes a new system that can scan shoes without passengers having to take them off, and another one that can identify liquids within opaque containers.

A software patch called ‘automated target recognition’ from Rapiscan Systems is trying to improve on the current full body scanner images by providing only an outline of the human body, along with colored squares within the image to point towards any foreign objects taped over or hidden within.

These moves and extreme spending on technology indicate that the TSA doesn’t see any changes to the current airport screening procedures. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said as much on CNN – that these changes, along with pat-downs as a backup option, are here to stay and the TSA doesn’t see any changes to the program in the foreseeable future.

This doesn’t offer much hope for a widespread implementation of the Trusted Traveler program the travel industry is asking for. Will the TSA be able to produce better results by trusting technology instead of travelers? They’re betting your billions of tax dollars on it.

2010 was not a good year for the travel industry. Some might argue it was better than 2009. But in terms of economic impact, 2010 was a downer.

Here’s the top travel stories of 2010 which captured imaginations and drove news cycles. No big surprise that each one was a disaster costing billions for the travel industry.

Top Travel Stories in 2010

Volcanic Ash ($5 billion) – The eruption of Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull volcano and the subsequent ash cloud that drifted across Europe shutting down airspace from April 15-21 cost around $5 billion in global GDP loss ($2.6 billion for the global aviation sector and $1.6 billion in visitor spending).

BP Oil Spill (between $7.6 billion to $22.7 billion) – At best, if the Gulf oil spill impact lasts 15 months, it will cost the travel industry $7.6 billion. At worst, if the oilspill impact lingers on for 3 years, it will end up costing a whopping $22.7 billion.

Recession ($70 billion) – This is the big kahuna, and according to USTA CEO Roger Dow, the US travel industry has lost 10% of its value since 2008, when it peaked at $770 billion. To be fair, most of that $70 billion loss will have been in 2009. Even so, both leisure and business travelers have been cautious most of this year and it’s still nowhere near pre-recession levels.

TSA ($26 billion + collateral damage) – The media made a big stink about the privacy rights violations of groping and full body scanners. But the real scandal is in the cost to the US economy because of the difficulty in getting through the US visa redtape and airport security. The price tag for this is around $26 billion because of 41 million missed trips.

The exhibitions industry claims that visa problems kept 116,000 international participants from attending exhibitions in the US, and that cost the US economy $2.6 billion.

Then there’s the collateral damage, like the $7 billion loss of Chicago losing its Olympic bid because an Olympic Committee member said that foreign visitors find traveling to the United States a ‘pretty harrowing experience.’

Arizona Immigration Boycott ($141 million) – Arizona’s controversial immigration law resulted in official boycotts from many cities and a slew of cancelled conventions worth between $15m to $45m, depending on whom you ask. The boycotts were called off after the law was partly put on hold by the courts, but it could pop up again any time.

After all this, 2011 looks like it’s going to be a huge improvement. That’s assuming there are no further ash clouds, oil spills, terrorist attacks, boycotts or recessions.

Photo credits (from top left): 1, 2, 3, 4