Airport execs clash with TSA over dropping exit lanes

• TSA would save %2488 million with move
• Airports complain the costs will be shifted to them
• Mass. congressional delegation protests TSA plan

Airport executives clashed Tuesday with Transportation Security Administration officials over the agency's decision to stop staffing exit lanes for passengers between arriving flights and the baggage claim.

John Halinski, TSA deputy administrator, told a security conference of the American Association of Airport Executives the agency is trying to save $88 million a year from staffing the posts at one-third of airports that have TSA officers there.

The TSA contends that airports should be responsible for access points such as doors, as they are for vehicle gates, so TSA officers can focus on passenger and luggage screening, Halinski said.

"We firmly believe that exit-lane monitoring is not a screening function, but rather an issue of access control," Halinski said. "I understand we disagree on this."

The TSA has ordered airports to take over the exit lanes during the first three months of 2014. As airports have petitioned for a change in the rule, TSA officials said replies to specific airports could offer a delay of perhaps weeks.

Airport executives remain opposed to the change for its cost and responsibility. Mark Crosby, chief of public safety and security at Portland International Airport, said there was no collaboration on the rule, which was "crammed down our throat."

"We disagree on that, and we'll see where that ends," Crosby said.

Carter Morris, the airport group's senior vice president for security policy, who moderated a panel with three TSA officials, said, "It's no secret that the airport community and the aviation community at large has some grave concerns about the approach and policy that TSA is taking on this."

Separately, the entire Massachusetts delegation to Congress wrote the TSA on Oct. 28 to complain about shifting the $4.5 million cost of staffing exit lanes to the airport and local law enforcement.

"In particular, we are concerned about its impact on the security of the flying public, airport employees and airline crewmembers," the delegation wrote.

Ed Freni, Massport's director of aviation, said exit lanes are part of TSA's responsibility for protecting passengers and baggage behind the security checkpoints.

"TSA staffing of exit lanes at airports like Boston Logan International Airport is critical to the agency fulfilling its responsibility," Freni said.

At the airport conference Tuesday, John Sammon, TSA assistant administrator for security policy, said the change is intended to save money at a time of tightening budgets.

"The airports do access control whether it's the perimeter or the doors or exit doors," said Sammon, who noted that he flew through Nashville last week where there aren't TSA officers at exit lanes.

By focusing on screening passengers and baggage, Sammon said, the agency is trying to move travelers through checkpoints faster.

"We want to support travel, and we want to make it more pleasurable and safer over time," Sammon said.

The conference held a moment of silence honoring Gerardo Hernandez, who was fatally shot Friday at a Los Angeles airport checkpoint in the first death of a TSA officer while on duty, and two other TSA officers who were wounded. TSA, the FBI and police continue to investigate the crime, for which Paul Ciancia, 23, is charged with murder.

Asked if the shooting would make any difference for exit lane security, Sammon noted that either a TSA officer or an airport contractor would be unarmed at an exit lane.

"If they're unarmed, it's not going to make much of a difference," Sammon said.