Senators call for more TSA screeners at Minneapolis-St. Paul airport

Long se­curi­ty lines at the Min­ne­ap­olis-St. Paul International Airport's main ter­mi­nal prompt­ed Min­ne­so­ta's two U.S. sena­tors on Wednesday to call for ad­di­tion­al staff­ing from the Transportation Security Administration (TSA).

On Mon­day, the Metropolitan Air­ports Commission (MAC) launched a tem­po­rary reconfiguration of two se­curi­ty check­points in the tick­et­ing lob­by of Ter­mi­nal 1, also known as the Lind­bergh ter­mi­nal. The new sys­tem prompted by a con­struc­tion pro­ject has cre­at­ed long lines, con­fu­sion and out­rage a­mong pas­sen­gers this week.

But Sen. Amy Klobuchar and Sen. Tina Smith, both D-Minn., said the con­struc­tion ex­ac­er­bat­es an al­read­y fes­ter­ing problem: TSA staff­ing has not kept up with the growth of pas­sen­gers fly­ing from MSP.

"The bottom line is that it is simply unacceptable that authorized TSA staffing at MSP has decreased while passenger traffic has increased," Klobuchar said at a news conference Wednesday. "It is critical that we do everything possible to mitigate the impact on wait times caused by construction."

Klobuchar said she has sent two let­ters to TSA Ad­min­is­tra­tor David Pekoske since last fall urging the a­gen­cy to bol­ster staff­ing at MSP to ad­dress re­cent in­creas­es in wait times at se­curi­ty check­points.

In 2012, MSP served a­bout 34 mil­lion pas­sen­gers and had 670 full-time e­quiv­a­lent TSA of­fic­ers al­lo­cat­ed to the air­port, ac­cord­ing to Klobuchar. By 2017, traf­fic at MSP had in­creased to 38 mil­lion pas­sen­gers, but the TSA had re­duced the num­ber of as­signed full-time e­quiv­a­lent of­fic­ers to 630, she said.

MAC spokes­man Pat­rick Ho­gan said, "TSA has great staff, there's just not en­ough of them." The TSA is only able to staff 16 of the 21 check­point lanes in Ter­mi­nal 1 at a time, he add­ed.

For ex­am­ple, Check­point No. 10 on the skyway be­tween the C and G con­courses has been shut­tered for months due to TSA staff­ing problems.

TSA spokeswoman Lauren Sundquist said the agency will not release the number of screeners at MSP.

"TSA at MSP is fully staffed at the authorized number for transportation security officers and brings new officers onboard to fill any vacancies as quickly as possible," she said.

The tem­po­rary reconfiguration, which ends in mid-December, means pas­sen­gers with TSA PreCheck, Clear with PreCheck, and air­port em­ploy­ees must use the south check­point, which has six lanes.

Passengers with­out PreCheck, and with First Class/Sky Pri­or­i­ty and stan­dard Clear, should use the north check­point, which has 10 lanes.

The construction is part of a broad­er, multiyear $1.6 bil­lion over­haul of the air­port's busy main ter­mi­nal.

At MSP, the TSA screens an av­er­age of 35,000 travelers a day, but in sum­mer months that num­ber can in­crease by more than 17% to ap­prox­i­mate­ly 41,000 travelers a day.