Dealing with the Transportation Security Administration is the worst part of any flight, even the ones that crash. On our way back from London last week, we stopped at Salt Lake City. My son uses a walker but we normally get a wheelchair for him because airports are often giant shopping malls spread across several football fields. When we get to security, a less-than-helpful TSA agent demands that my son get out of the wheelchair and walk through the metal detector on his own. My son can free walk short distances but he needs to hold onto something as he moves, and I wouldn’t trust the TSA geniuses to intervene if he fell.
This happens almost every time we fly, because TSA agents have apparently never encountered people with mobility aids. They seem to think they are all optional. They’ve even asked my son to abandon his walker as if it’s just a toy. This is never not annoying because TSA has an alternate screening process: They take someone with a mobility device aside and pat them down or wipe their hands to make sure the eight-year-old isn’t a bomb.
The TSA’s own video makes the process seem very considerate and civilized, like its employees are all very polite Jane Austen characters. In reality, they’re usually gruff, rude, and impatient. This seems odd because they’re the ones who are compensated for their trouble. The video is called “TSA Cares,” but “cares” is not a verb I’d associate with the TSA.
The overall TSA screening process is such a disorganized mess that I presume they just don’t have time to act like humans with a disabled person. It’s easier for them, I guess, if a disabled person doesn’t make a fuss and walks through the metal detector on their own. At multiple airports across the country, TSA agents respond with visible annoyance when I explain the simple fact that my son can’t walk reliably. Getting through most airports is also exhausting, especially when connecting after a nine-hour international flight.
Apparently, TSA is supposed to allow parents to carry a child under 12 with a disability through the metal detector, as “doing so can allow the child to forego what could be a stressful or confusing pat down procedure.” This has never been offered to us at any airport. TSA seems to specialize in stressful and confusing situations.
When I tweeted about this last week, theatermaker Melissa Hillman shared her own frustrating experience: “They ask me every time to put my cane on the scanner. Then when the metal in my pelvis triggers their detector, they expect me to stand there without support Oh & take off/put back on my shoes without a place to sit. Is TSA just exempt from ADA? Why are they so relentlessly terrible?”
TSA screening is so chaotic it feels intentional. Absolutely zero thought has been put into how anyone with mobility challenges would get through security. Asking people to remove their shoes and coats without anywhere to sit down or support themselves is thoughtless and inefficient. There’s always a bottleneck at the end of security.
It’s a very senseless ordeal. There’s no compelling evidence that the TSA’s screening process prevents terrorist attacks or saves lives. TSA PreCheck, which my wife and I have, and Clear lets people move through the line more quickly but at a cost. They make their own incompetence a selling point for supposed “better” service. The major PreCheck appeal for us was that you don’t have to take off your shoes and remove your laptops from your bag. No one should have to take off their shoes, period. It’s an unjustifiable security measure. There’s a greater chance that your child’s Halloween candy was spiked with fentanyl than a traveler’s shoes containing a bomb or 1960s sitcom phone.
After 9/11, it was still rare for the average person to travel with a laptop or other electronic devices. Now, almost everyone does (even kids) and TSA refuses to update its protocols with current reality. No one is taking over flight controls with an iPad. The TSA’s liquid and gels “rules” are also absurd.
Most of what TSA does is pointless security theatre. I don’t begrudge anyone making a living, and I’ve always been willing to politely endure this irritating start to a vacation. However, I have no patience for TSA agents treating my disabled kid like a personal annoyance. Like Vito Corleone, that I don’t forgive.
[Vox]
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