By Steve Swedberg, Competitive Enterprise Institute
With Congress finally passing a Department of Homeland Security appropriations bill last week, the immediate crisis that left airport security strained is behind us. However, this recent episode was a stark reminder that the challenges facing the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) run deeper than any funding lapse.
Recent disruptions highlight the system’s weaknesses under stress, but those same weaknesses also appear in routine conditions. They affect cost, efficiency, and passenger experience every day. Most interactions with airport security occur under normal conditions, where small inefficiencies accumulate across millions of travelers. Complaints about TSA lines did not suddenly materialize during the funding shutdown.
One way to address these inefficiencies is privatization. The case for privatizing airport screening rests on incentives and accountability. The TSA’s monopoly structure, combined with its conflicting role as both regulator and operator, weakens competitive pressure and suppresses innovation. Costly and often ineffective procedures persist alongside documented failures in screening performance.
Privatization would allow airports to contract with screening providers that compete on performance and can be replaced if they fall short. Privatized airport screening is common across the developed world at no cost to safety. Furthermore, elements of privatization already exist in the TSA’s Screening Partnership Program (SPP).
While TSA privatization offers the clearest path forward to improving airport security, Congress can pursue targeted incremental reforms to enhance efficiency and accountability within the existing framework.
Create an opt-out system for SPP
The SPP allows airports to replace federal TSA screeners with private contractors who operate under the same security standards and federal oversight. However, the program is structured as an opt-in process where airports must apply for participation and undergo TSA review and approval before any transition can occur.
This design is a core problem of the SPP. Because participation requires navigating a centralized approval process, the decision to pursue private screening carries administrative costs and uncertainty that discourage airports from initiating applications in the first place. An opt-out reform would correct this by making private screening the default arrangement, with airports required to justify remaining under federal operation.
This shift would improve performance by normalizing competition instead of treating it as an exception. Private providers would compete to meet federal security standards, while federal regulators would remain responsible for setting requirements and conducting oversight, removing the current conflict of interest.
Decentralize contractor selection
As Reason Foundation analyst Marc Scribner has argued, a second but equally important reform is decentralizing contractor selection and management from DHS to airport authorities. Although the SPP allows private screening at select airports, its structure remains highly centralized. Airports must apply to TSA. If approved, TSA largely determines which certified contractor is assigned. The result is a process that functions more like administrative assignment than competitive procurement.
This structure reverses standard government procurement, where agencies certify qualified vendors and allow the service purchaser to select the provider that best meets local needs.
A revised model would allow airports to contract directly with TSA-certified screening providers. Airports could choose providers based on performance and operational fit, as well as terminate contracts that underperform. This would strengthen accountability by shifting selection authority, contract governance, and termination power closer to airport operators and service outcomes.
Improve transparency
Transparency is an often-overlooked but powerful driver of performance improvement in complex security systems. Earlier Government Accountability Office (GAO) oversight in the 2000s and early 2010s relied on detailed operational data to assess performance across airports. Over time, comparable public reporting has become more limited, which reduces external visibility into system-wide performance trends.
The GAO has also identified transparency concerns in TSA processes, particularly in how screening policies are implemented and evaluated. When decision-making criteria and performance data are less accessible, it becomes more difficult to assess effectiveness.
Broader research suggests that reduced transparency and increased procedural complexity expand discretionary authority and weaken accountability mechanisms. Reestablishing standardized reporting on key metrics like wait times, throughput, and contractor performance would restore visibility and strengthen incentives for operational improvement.
Preparing for takeoff on TSA reform
Privatization remains the most direct path to aligning incentives in airport security, but it is not the only policy lever available. Reforms to the SPP, greater airport autonomy in contractor selection, and improved transparency would each reduce friction in the current system and strengthen accountability.
Shutdown or not, passengers still pay the price for a system built around inertia as opposed to innovation. The question remaining is how long Congress will allow this dysfunctional system to persist.
Steve Swedberg is a Policy Analyst with the Center for Economic Freedom, focusing on financial, monetary, and transportation policy.
