KEEP COMPASSION ALONG WITH SAFETY
When Sean Holstege received copies of 32 complaints filed against Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport TSA agents, the names of those who complained were blacked out.
The Transportation Security Administration said it wanted to protect their privacy — something its screeners hadn’t worried about when they dealt with these passengers.
The agents patted down women’s prosthetic breasts in front of other travelers. “She made me pull it out in front of the world,” a woman traveling to Newark, N.J., wrote. Screeners took an 82-year-old woman in a wheelchair to a separate room, where they had her strip to the waist and remove her prosthetic for inspection.
A 92-year-old man with polio was ordered out of his wheelchair to stand in the body-scanning machine. “Find out if he has his knees and hips! If he does, then there is no reason he can’t stand,” the man’s grandson heard a TSA screener shout.
One such incident like this is inexcusable. But when people with disabilities file complaints against Sky Harbor’s screeners at 21⁄ times the national rate, it suggests an intolerable situation.
TSA screeners have a thankless job. Though they know practically all travelers merely want to get to their destination, they must view everyone as a potential threat. If they find weapons in one wheelchair, they have to inspect them all. But an abundance of caution shouldn’t wipe out common sense. Or the TSA’s own policies.
“Passengers with prostheses can be screened without removing them,” the TSA says on its website. That policy needs to be shared with agents who forced women to remove prosthetics.
TSA policy also advises diabetics they can have properly labeled insulin inspected by hand. Yet several complaints filed in Phoenix indicate TSA agents ran insulin through X-ray machines twice, and one passenger said his blood-glucose levels skyrocketed after the flight.
Sky Harbor TSA screeners have routinely violated passengers’ privacy and their agency’s protocol. They have needlessly made air travel more unpleasant for people with disabilities. This requires a response more energetic than a form letter apologizing for “any insensitivity or inappropriate treatment you experienced.”
Sky Harbor cannot be “America’s Friendliest Airport” as long as TSA screeners draw complaints from travelers with disabilities far beyond the national average. The agency’s leaders need to find out what’s wrong and fix it, whether through discipline of a few bad apples, additional training for the entire force, or both.
We should be able to protect air travel in this nation without abandoning compassion.