Most flights for Todd Carte are work related. The Quicken Loans executive travels often for his job and has little patience for airport security checkpoints.
“You wait forever, and that’s what I’m getting ready to do,” Carte said on his way to a flight at Miami International Airport. “It stinks.”
Waiting in line is one of the most unpleasant parts of traveling, but help is on the way, at least at Miami International Airport.
To help cope with these crowds, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has brought on 60 additional security screening officers at MIA. The airport has also added two TSA Pre-Check lanes in two of its busiest terminals.
“We look at it like a Super Bowl everyday,” said Greg Chin, a spokesperson for Miami International Airport. “A Super Bowl has hundreds of thousands of people in a day, and we do that every day in the summer.”
Chin says MIA expects more than one hundred thousand passengers every day this summer. Its status as a hub for all of Latin America makes the extra personnel especially important.
“There is a language barrier and there’s people coming from different cultures and [speaking] different languages and things have to be explained. It’s very important to have those screeners there to really keep the throughput moving,” Chin said.
As for Carte, he says he tries to use the TSA Pre-Check lane whenever they are available.
“It’s great. It’s easy. It’s fast,” Carte said. “I can get through with taking nothing off or any laptops out. I can get through security in five minutes or less.”
