Panel: Airline Security Underpaid

March 16, 2000

Airline baggage screeners, who provide a crucial line of defense in the nation's airline safety program, often quit their jobs to make more money flipping hamburgers. "Screeners are a critical link in the performance chain," Cathal Flynn, the Federal Aviation Administration's associate chief for security, said during a hearing Thursday of a House Aviation subcommittee panel. "While it is difficult to verify a correlation between better pay and better performance, we can all agree that properly trained and qualified people who are on the job longer tend to perform better," Flynn said. The testimony had subcommittee members searching for ways to improve the pay and training for screeners and other ways of beefing up airport security. Highly complex and expensive bomb detection machines are often operated by people making $5.75 to $6.75 an hour, said subcommittee chairman Rep. John Duncan (R-Tenn.)