US airport security officers to wear badges

Airport security checkpoint officers in the United States will start wearing badges later this year, in order to increase the respect they receive from passengers, who may be frustrated by tedious screening rules and by lengthy queues. Dwayne Baird, representing the TSA, the governmental organization which is in charge of security screening at all US airports, feels that badges will make security officers much more visible at American hubs. “It certainly enhances that aspect of presence we have at the security checkpoint,” Baird told journalists.

According to preliminary media reports, these new badges will be either shiny gold or silver in colour, and TSA officers will wear blue shirts, in order to ensure that these badges are as visible as possible. Baird predicts that security officers at all US airports will start wearing these new badges before the end of the year. Passengers travelling through Washington DC’s Reagan National Airport, however, will find that screening officers have already started wearing the shiny new badges.

Security at US airports is the most stringent anywhere in the world. All passengers are required to remove their shoes while passing through the gate and the TSA operates a system through which a certain percentage of passengers are selected at random for additional screening. In these cases, their boarding passes are usually marked with the letter “s.”