TSA considers next steps for privatized screening after scrapping Gold+ plans

By Justin Doubleday

The Transportation Security Administration has scrapped the Gold+ privatization concept, but TSA leaders are still exploring how to expand privatized airport screening.

Meanwhile, industry is pushing for TSA to consider the ideas that came out of the Gold+ acquisition process as the agency explores an “evolution” of its existing Screening Partnership Program (SPP).

Officials, speaking at a conference hosted by the Airports Council International – North America in Arlington, Va., this week, made clear they are still bullish on expanding private airport screening.

“The concept around Gold+ was confusing to folks in terms of what it was and what the solution was, what the carrot was, and there was just a lot of confusion in the industry, and so I decided to sunset the Gold+ initiative, but not the desire to increase membership in SPP,” TSA Administrator David Cummins said in a wide ranging keynote address Tuesday.

Cummins said he has spoken to “a number of airports that are interested” in joining SPP, which is TSA’s existing program for having a private contractor manage airport screening.

“What we’re setting out to do, and we have a whole team focused on this, is how can we evolve this SPP concept,” he said. “How can we tie it into what I just talked about in terms of the modernization of the checkpoints, not just the PreCheck checkpoints, but the standard lane checkpoints, where we can provide a carrot, an incentive, that the airports would be like, ‘Yeah, we want that.’”

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Steve Lorincz, executive assistant administrator for security operations at TSA, said the agency is discussing establishing a “tiger team” to evaluate the Gold+ process and next steps for the agency. TSA has already established several such teams to make recommendations on various reforms under Cummins’ Horizon 25 strategy.

“We still have all the information from TSA Gold+, so all all that information is going to be kind of incorporated, but the boss wants to really look at it and provide a fresh perspective,” Lorincz said during a Wednesday panel.

“And even when you look at, you know, Horizon 25, right? It’s like, what is TSA going to look like in the next 25 years, and we know that the SPP product has been in place since the beginning, but it’s time to evolve,” he said. “So I think there’s going to be a lot of work in that space.”

The current SPP private screening model is in place at 20 airports across the country. The Trump administration has already proposed cutting some TSA jobs and expanding that model to the smallest commercial airports.

Under Gold+, previous TSA leadership had tried to sell airports on an evolution of the SPP model where contractors would manage both the screening workforce and the technology. The pitch was that contractors could upgrade screening technology and introduce new “innovations,” while seeing less disruption to the workforce during a government shutdown.

The push for the privatized model generated significant concern among TSA’s 55,000 transportation security officers. The American Federation of Government Employees, which represents TSOs under a collective bargaining agreement, also argued the model would prioritize profits over security.

Three airports initially opted into the Gold+ program. But the largest of those, Tampa International Airport, decided not to pursue the initiative after studying the program further and hearing concerns from the TSOs at the facility. Around the same time, TSA decided to cancel the Gold+ program and consider an “evolved” SPP instead.

Before TSA canceled the program, it had released a final Gold+ solicitation and had been evaluating proposals from industry. Raymond Laroche, chief operating officer at Punta Gorda Airport, near Sarasota, Florida, said he hopes the agency will consider those proposals as it moves forward with new plans. Punta Gorda is among the 20 airports that uses a private screening contractor under SPP.

“In a lot of the discussions that I’ve had this week, a lot of the people that were intending to get into the Gold+ program had spent a lot of time and effort and money in coming up with those ideas, and I don’t want to see those ideas go to waste,” Laroche said. “There should be a group getting to present those ideas to the administrator and at least laying it out, what the process was, what worked, what didn’t work, and put those ideas forward so they aren’t lost and it’s not a complete waste.”