Make flying safer and more efficient: Return airport security to the airlines

I will never forget the silence on the Atlanta ramp that afternoon. For those of us in aviation, the stillness was both humbling and deeply sobering.

Nearly a quarter-century later, the aviation system is safer, the technology is better and the industry itself has evolved. Yet airport screening still operates as a large federal system created during a moment of national crisis.

It may be time to ask whether airlines — operating under strong federal oversight — should once again manage passenger screening, restoring operational accountability while maintaining the same security standards.

Efficiency is essential in aviation

Credit: Handout

Credit: Handout

In the weeks after 9/11, Congress created the Transportation Security Administration and federalized passenger screening across the nation’s airports.

Before 9/11, airlines themselves were responsible for screening passengers through specialized security contractors operating under federal standards.

The system was not perfect, but the incentives were clear.

Airlines understood that their reputation, their passengers, and ultimately their survival depended on maintaining both safety and operational efficiency.

Today, airport checkpoints operate largely through a centralized federal workforce system. The men and women carrying out that mission work hard and perform an essential role. Yet the structure itself separates operational responsibility from operational accountability.

That distinction matters.

Airlines run one of the most complex logistical systems in the world. Every day they coordinate aircraft, crews, gates, weather and passengers across thousands of flights. Efficiency isn’t optional in aviation — it is essential.

Security operations should function within that same discipline.

A modernized approach could return the operation of passenger screening to airlines through certified private security providers while maintaining strict federal oversight.

Government would continue to set national standards, enforce compliance, and coordinate intelligence and threat detection. Airlines would manage the operational execution.

This principle already works throughout aviation: Regulators regulate. Operators operate.

How accountability would improve

Credit: Jason Getz/AJC

Credit: Jason Getz/AJC

The United States already operates a limited version of this model through the TSA Screening Partnership Program, which allows airports to use qualified private security companies to conduct passenger screening while federal authorities maintain oversight and national security standards.

Critics will argue that returning screening responsibility to airlines could weaken security. In reality, separating regulation from operations often strengthens accountability. Federal authorities retain the power to set the rules and enforce them, while industry focuses on delivering efficient and effective execution.

That balance already governs many aspects of aviation — from aircraft certification to airline safety oversight — and it has helped make the American aviation system among the safest in the world.

Security should follow the same model.

Over the course of my aviation career, I placed my own family members — including my wife Kay — on countless flights with full faith and confidence in the safety of the airline system and in the professionalism of the federal agencies that support it.

The goal is not to weaken aviation security. The goal is to make it smarter, more efficient, and more accountable.

After nearly 25 years of federalized screening, it may be time to reconsider whether airlines — working in partnership with strong federal oversight — should once again take a direct role in protecting the passengers they serve.

I still remember the silence of the ATL ramp that afternoon. Every aircraft in America had been grounded, and the ramp had fallen quiet in a way I had never experienced before and have never forgotten.

Aviation has changed dramatically since that day. But the responsibility to protect the passengers who trust the system remains unchanged.

Sometimes the strongest systems are built when those who operate them every day are trusted to help protect them as well.

J. Fred Marlow spent 23 years with Atlantic Southeast Airlines (ASA), a Delta Connection carrier, the last seven of those years in Atlanta. He also worked with Piedmont and American Airlines in Phoenix and Chicago. He and his wife Kay reside in North Carolina.