The president of American Airlines’ pilots union is in no uncertain terms telling members that they should show up late for their flights by using standard security lines, in order to prove a point to both airlines and the TSA.
Pilots are frustrated with Known Crewmember program
With the Known Crewmember program (KCM), eligible pilots and flight attendants can skip the security lines at airports, and enter the sterile area of the airport without being screened. The intent is that this saves time for crews, and allows the TSA to better allocate its resources to passengers, who generally pose a greater risk.
The thing is, when crews use a Known Crewmember checkpoint, they can still randomly be subjected to secondary screening. It makes sense that there would be some element of surprise involved here, just to make sure crews aren’t trying to transport drugs, weapons, etc.
Over time we’ve increasingly seen (a very small percentage of) crew members abusing these checkpoints, and there have even been several reports of flight attendants trying to smuggle drugs through checkpoints.
As a result, the number of secondary screenings at Known Crewmember checkpoints has allegedly increased massively in recent months, to the point that sometimes people are getting secondary screening more often than not. While there are rumors that changes could be coming to Known Crewmember, nothing has been officially confirmed by the TSA.
And that brings us to the interesting way that one union representing pilots is telling members to deal with this.
What American’s pilots union is telling members
Ed Sicher is the President of the Allied Pilots Association (APA), representing American Airlines pilots. In a memo to all pilots on Thursday (as reported by Ross Feinstein), Sicher recommended that pilots start avoiding Known Crewmember checkpoints. He starts by explaining the problem:
“The word ‘expeditious’ can no longer be used in the same sentence as KCM. The KCM ‘privilege’ has become anything but due to the rising number of secondary screenings our pilots are being subjected to on a regular basis. It is not unusual for a pilot to be ‘randomly’ screened six or seven consecutive times. The rate of these screenings has increased to the point where expeditious screening at KCM has been replaced by unpredictable and in some cases lengthy delays.”
Sicher states that pilots used Known Crewmember checkpoints two million times in 2021, and only 17 problems were identified, some of which were minor infractions. In other words, he doesn’t think the increase in secondary screenings is appropriate.
So, what does he recommend? Using the regular security lines, and not jumping ahead of any passengers in them:
“Since KCM no longer appears to be working as it was originally intended, it may be time for pilots to consider forgoing it completely until expedited screening becomes a reality again. Accordingly, I recommend using the standard passenger entry points for security screening when beginning and connecting on our sequences. For those who choose to do so, please do NOT jump in front of passengers who may also be harried and late due to the unpredictable nature of the TSA checkpoints.”
You might be thinking, “it’s so considerate that he’s telling pilots not to jump the line.” Employees are allowed to cut the line, so as you might expect, there’s a motive for that:
“By temporarily bypassing the KCM screening checkpoints, we will highlight to both the TSA and management the problems that have arisen with the system. Once KCM has been fixed to the point that it is once again a predictable means of expeditious security screening, I will be the first to encourage our pilots to exercise the privilege. Until then, you should consider utilizing traditional TSA screenings and wait in line with our passengers.”
There’s not much left to the imagination here. The way pilots would “highlight” this problem to management is when it impacts operational performance, so the intent here is to obviously have flights delayed, in hopes of getting airlines to pressure the TSA to reduce the number of secondary screenings at Known Crewmember checkpoints.
Bottom line
Pilots are frustrated by the number of secondary screenings that they’re getting at Known Crewmember checkpoints, which are intended to let them predictably zip through the airport. The Allied Pilots Association, representing American Airlines pilots, is encouraging members to forgo these checkpoints.
Rather the union is telling members to use the regular security lines and not skip anyone, in order to “highlight” the issue to both airlines and the TSA.
So if you do see an increase in the number of pilots in standard security lines, now you know why (however, something tells me most pilots won’t actually do this, because who would want to voluntarily deal with a TSA checkpoint?).
What do you make of the union’s approach to dealing with Known Crewmember checkpoint delays?
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