E

We passed through the Las Vegas airport this past weekend and were quite shocked at the unprofessional behavior and practices of the screeners at the security gates. They played with the items set to pass through the xray machine--stuffed animals, funny hats--and teased and joked with everyone in line to the point that it was impossible to know when to take them seriously. They told one woman to untie the sweater she had around her waist and pass it through the xray, but she laughed it off because they had been fooling around with her earlier and went through the gates with her sweater still on--and they laughed this off, too! They asked another woman to take off her shoes in such a laughing manner that she had to ask "Are you serious? You want me to take my shoes off?"

The final straw: we spied a Bic lighter lying in full view on one of the tables at the end of the screening area. Anyone could have made off with it, but the three screeners "in charge of" the area didn't make a move to secure it, although they could not have missed seeing it.

Perhaps not surprisingly, they were all employed by a private firm, not TSA--a cost-cutting measure? How can they be alert to a threat, or act as a deterrent, when they're busy putting on a floor show?

I sent these observations to the director of airport security via e-mail. Will let you know if he replies.

bluestructure

Please do let us know, we went right through over the 4th holiday. Its seemed like they more concerned of how we were standing in line waiting to get thru the xray machines. I havent thought much about it but now I wonder why it only took us 10 min to get thru such a LONG line.

travelinwifey

I was in the LAS airport last Friday and a screener made a blatently racist comment to an African passenger. I was shocked. I am sending a letter to the airport management as well as the NTSB. I was actually ashamed to be a Las Vegas resident after the ugly remark I heard. Must have a real idiot doing the hiring there.
I'm surprised to see another poster making comments about the LV airport.

Spygirl

Before you go alarming everyone with what you "think" was lax security, be advised that simply because joking is going on with pax does NOT mean the screeners are not doing their jobs! What one "thinks" one sees at the screener checkpoint is not necessarily all that's going on-and screeners are trained quite thoroughly in customer service to help make the screening process a little less onerous for the pax. Now as for the Bic lighter-those are permitted on board an aircraft- check out www.tsa.gov for a list of prohibited and permitted items on board.

Annabel

Just returned from Vegas on 7/14 and noticed the same behavior. The women at the security line were fighting with each other. Apparently the first class security woman was mad at the other women. The lines are very confusing...we were first class passengers and got on the wrong line. They were afraid to send us to the first class security because she/they were in a bad mood. They were not paying attention to the passengers, instead we saw them throwing words back and forth to each other. Very unprofessional.

It caught my attention, since we witnessed the same thing first hand. Not normal for sure.

E

Spygirl, it did occur to me that what I was seeing was an elaborate "show" designed to disguise the fact that this was a crack security team at work...I considered this idea for, oh, 10 seconds. Have you ever been through airport security in, say, Europe? Never, ever would you see hokin' and jokin' on the part of security personnel.