The Transportation Security Administration recently announced its "accomplishments and progress" for 2022, including a new record for firearm interceptions by its at airport checkpoints.
TSA is "making significant strides to improve transportation security" while screening, on average, more than two million passengers daily at the nation's airports, the administration said in a Jan. 17 news release.
"I am incredibly proud of our dedicated TSA employees who perform the critical task of securing our nation’s transportation systems each day," TSA Administrator David Pekoske said in the news release. "We had a very successful year that ended with the enactment of the FY 2023 Omnibus Appropriations Bill, which included funding to bring TSA employee compensation to a level commensurate with other federal employees, in addition to funding to expand collective bargaining rights for our non-supervisory screening workforce."
Funding to improve employee compensation has been a long time coming, Pekoske said, according to the release.
"For years, our employees have not been paid fairly, and securing pay parity was necessary from an operational standpoint as we continue to see increasing travel volumes, and will also help our ability to recruit and hire new employees and retain the talent we have," he said in the release.
Checkpoint employees last year provided airport screenings at or near pre-pandemic travel volumes, even in challenging weather conditions, the release reported. TSA also provided enhanced cybersecurity resilience in its critical transportation infrastructure, including performance-based security directives.
The administration also "continued to test and deploy new technologies that significantly improve security effectiveness, efficiency and the passenger experience throughout the transportation system," the news release said.
TSA stopped 6,500 firearms at airport checkpoints nationwide last year, a record above the 5,972 guns stopped at checkpoints the previous year - which itself had been record breaking. Almost 90% of the stopped firearms had been loaded, according to the release.
TSA also marked last year as its 20th in checkpoint federalization at more than 400 airports nationwide, the release said.
