MIAMI – AAA is expecting a 9 percent increase in travelers for the Labor Day holiday weekend and with more travelers, longer wait times are expected at places like the airport.
CBS News Miami went behind the scenes to look at how TSA operates to keep things running at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport.
As airports see record-breaking numbers, TSA officers are hard at work.
Ravyn Williams is one of more than 900 TSA officers at FLL.
She started her shift by checking IDs and tickets, but that can change at any moment as they rotate throughout their shift.
All of sudden, she’s sitting in a chair watching a screen, scanning carry-on items.
She said technology helps not just them but also passengers.
“It makes it much easier to be able to determine what’s in the passengers’ bag. It makes screening a bag take less time than what it would normally take as far as getting the passengers in and out,” said Williams.
Time to move again, as Williams finds her next gig of the day being the second eye, going through bags with items possibly on the no-fly list.
One bag coming through had frozen fish.
“In some cases, we’re just testing items, making sure that there’s nothing concealed inside of them and that’s basically this process,” said Williams.
The TSA federal security director at FLL said officers are always going through training to be up to date on the latest technology.
He said with record-breaking volumes of passengers going beyond holidays, staffing is important.
“The staffing and scheduling that we have and the planning it’s a heavy Intricate process we go through, where we pull all of our people together make sure we got enough staffing to cover all of the flights the airlines have scheduled,” said Jason Martin, the TSA federal security director at FLL.
There are ways travelers can make sure their own TSA experience runs smoother.
Check your bags before showing up to the airport and make sure you don’t pack things you shouldn’t, like guns.
