Keeping bad people off planes – Secure Flight prescreening in milliseconds

Thursday, December 12, 2024

On its surface, Secure Flight is an easy and straightforward concept; prescreen passengers before they arrive at the airport, expedite low-risk traveler screenings and keep those with ill intent out of the secure area.

Not even the plank holders and creators of Secure Flight could have predicted the seismic stats coming from the program 20 years after its inception. From July 1, 2023, to June 30, 2024, over 1 billion total passengers were prescreened. That's a 66% increase in annual passenger volume from its 2009 inaugural year of 600 million enplanements for both domestic and international flights.

Newspaper front pages after 9/11 (Photo courtesy of Christine Davis)

This past fiscal year, Secure Flight reported 8,437 confirmed matches to known or suspected terrorist watch list records, including 396 passengers who were matched to the FBI's no fly list.

"It's common to hear around the office, 'The bad guys only have to get it right once. We have to get it right every time,'" said Industry Performance & Analysis Section Chief Lynn Root, "When someone says, 'there is only a one in a million chance of that happening,' that means it could happen two or three times a day considering the volumes we process."

"When we initially started bringing the carriers on to do the testing, we were vetting in batches from early morning until late in the evening," said I&A's Branch Manager of Ops Management Jon Wisham.

"Now, matches are done on a nearly real-time basis in milliseconds. Secure Flight was built for speed and accuracy. It has no negative impact on the passenger's travel (experience)."

The Secure Flight program is a highly orchestrated, 24/7, 365-day operation, matching passenger information to continuously updated watch lists within 72 hours of a flight, or faster if a flight has been purchased or rebooked within that time frame.

Why it's done is obvious, but the evolution of the risk-based program over the last two decades - well, that's a bit more complex.

Prior to Secure Flight, individual airlines were inconsistently prescreening passengers by names and travel locations against watch lists.

"I was employed by Northwest Airlines when the 9/11 attacks occurred. I'll never forget it," recalled Christine Davis, Program Analyst in Operations Support/Enrollment Services and Vetting Programs (ESVP). "I was working as a reservation agent at the time, and following the attacks, I recall scrutinizing every booking that came through involving the aircraft distance capability, the point of departure and destination, basically any long haul (non-stop) flight, especially if it was a one way booking."

While the 9/11 Commission Report recommended TSA manage and operate the list matching functions of air passengers, the first two agency attempts initiated in August of 2004 were scrapped over concerns of data mining and privacy concerns.

TSA Administrator Kip Hawley, CBP Commissioner W. Ralph Basham and DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff (Photo courtesy of TSA Historians) Last boarding pass issued before Secure Flight prescreening (Photo courtesy of TSA Historians)

In 2008, TSA Administrator Kip Hawley issued a call for a new, no-fail, risk-based process to commence in 2009. With limited time to produce a successful program, TSA executives, contractors and employees with backgrounds in stakeholder industries were united in the mission objective.

"In the beginning, the deadlines we had were almost impossible," said Intelligence & Analysis (I&A) Analytics Support Branch Program Analyst Denise O'Sullivan about the comments made by the airlines and the pressure the team members felt to produce a successful vetting program quickly. "But when the government puts a deadline on you, you had no other choice but meet it."

Like many of the inaugural Secure Flight team, Security Operations Program Assistant Sharon Edwards came to TSA from a stakeholder industry after 9/11. She was in a unique position to understand the pushback from the airlines when they lost control of vetting.

"Quite a few of us at the call center came from the airline industry," said Edwards who remembers working the other side of the aisle and asking airline reservationists for passenger's dates of birth, something that wasn't vetted prior to Secure Flight. "We spoke their language. We understood each other, and I have to say that everybody I worked with was very professional."

"One of the biggest impacts on the airline industry was financial," said O'Sullivan about the millions of dollars they invested when they had to upgrade computer systems to handle the additional data needed from passenger ticket purchases. "I think being able to speak the airline language and understanding the airline perspective helped a bit, but ultimately (everyone) was under the Secure Flight Final Rule," which allowed TSA to implement Secure Fight under the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act 2004. "They had no choice."

There were challenges and growing pains, but ultimately the "cut over" to Secure Flight prescreening took place on January 30, 2009.

"We identified more known or suspected terrorists traveling in the first few months of Secure Flight then the airlines had identified in the years before," said Wisham. "That's because we received better data. The airlines expanded what was being provided to Secure Flight."

Plank holders and sustainers who currently maintain and grow the program all share the "not on our watch" motivation.

Historic first Secure Flight boarding pass (Photo courtesy of TSA Historians)

Secure Flight has been ESVP Capabilities Integration Branch Manager Phil Anderson's only job working for the federal government, and he plans to stick around.

"Being part of the Secure Flight program for more than a decade is extremely rewarding because I believe the work we do helps ensure each passenger receives the appropriate level of screening." said Anderson. "Knowing I have a small role in keeping my family, friends, and all the people who fly into, out of, within, and over the United States, or anywhere in the world on a US aircraft, safe is enormously satisfying."

Pamela Vanvranken came to ESVP from U.S. Airways and has had a hand in the growth.

"When Secure Flight was stood up, I found myself on a detail assignment, and I am still there," Vanvranken humbly said of her longevity. "Engaging with airlines and ensuring their Secure Flight passenger data is submitted accurately and in a timely fashion to the NTVC really makes me feel like I am making a difference. Daily, I think I am ultimately keeping bad guys off the airplanes, and I feel very proud."

"Secure Flight has been outrageously successful," said Wisham. "The program is a testament to how the government can partner with private industry and provide a security function that doesn't interfere with their business model and doesn't interfere with their ability to take care of their customers. We do so in a seamless way, effectively and efficiently processing about 3.4 million passengers a day."

By Karen Robicheaux, TSA Strategic Communications and Public Affairs