City Council - Regular Meeting

The TSA paper that was passed today is actually causing for a 90-day feasibility study. What this feasibility study will look at is, is it possible for Atlanta-Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport to privatize the TSA baggage screens? It also will ask how much it will cost, what it would take, what would be the timeline behind it, and then we also put in there If we decide to go that way, what would it take for the TSA workers to come over and actually work for this newly created division? So there's a lot of things that we put in this paper, but hopefully we can get it back in 90 days and it will answer a lot of questions. Coming out of the last governmental shutdown was the biggest motivation. A lot of people don't realize I used to work at the airport. I used to work on the security team at the airport. So I know this process well. I know TSA process well. So when I seen the launch that was not only extending out of the secure area, but out of the airport itself, down the sidewalks, and the only thing that we could give to our passengers was a word of caution, we needed to do something different. And it is us as leaders in this city, if there's a better experience that we can deliver to our customers, and those are the ones that use our airport, then it's up to us to find a better experience and offer it. So this study will give us an opportunity to see if we can do it, when we can do it, but more importantly, how much it'll cost to do it.