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Comment by shadowgovt | Hacker News Reader

Location of deployment is not surprising.

Las Vegas, I am convinced, has a special arrangement with the TSA because they understand that making it difficult to fly in and out of that city will have direct and measurable impact on the entire economy of the region (and they have the money and clout to be heard at federal politics level).

I have noticed flying out of Vegas that screening is an awful lot more gentle than it is in other airports, and I'm fairly confident it's because the TSA there has received a very solid note to not have people's last memory leaving Vegas be a sour memory.

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That does sound feasible. There are a number of airports (SFO probably being the largest) that have their security screening performed by non-TSA third-party companies, which I suppose is the ultimate political embarrasment lever to pull.

Currently 19, I think: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screening_Partnership_Program

The last time I was there it was still TSA. How is it? Are they more courteous and/or efficient?

It's been that way since 2005. It's pretty much indistinguishable from TSA other than the badges on the uniforms.

> It's pretty much indistinguishable from TSA

It has never been, is not, and will never be, different. Instead of paying fees to TSA SFO pays slightly more to the contractor doing the job. It's the same. Same rules, same procedure, same equipment. Same, same, same. The only difference is the patches on the shirts.

Everyone in here has cultural amnesia about air travel in the 90s.

The current system is TEN BILLION TIMES better than post-lockerbie.

SFO hasn't had TSA.

https://www.sfgate.com/travel/article/answering-holiday-trav...

If that was the case, you'd think they'd make their airport less miserable. They have some of the worst food options I've seen at an airport in a long time, presumably because any restaurant would take away precious real estate for the ever-present slot machines.

It's because they've seen everything. The TSA screener in Dallas may see one pair of handcuffs a month. The screener in LAS sees 20 a day.

Flights are unusually cheap to/through KLAS. I wouldn't be surprised if the gaming industry partially subsidizes flights to attract customers.

Was just there at re:invent the other week, and I couldn't point to anything different about the airport WRT security and TSA. Very long lines, traffic in and out of the airport was _insane_. My last impressions of Vegas were the terrible traffic, long lines for a limited selection of airport food, but hey, if I wanted to play slots, there they were.

Yes, F1 had wrapped up the week ago, but it didn't seem like they were hurrying to take anything down.

Huh...I go to Vegas for DEFCON each year and have always found traffic to be a breeze and the security line never takes me more than 15 minutes.

As for the food...meh? I don't go to an airport for their Michelin-starred restaurants.

I have low expectation of airport food, too, but unless you get a direct flight at the right time you're going to find yourself needing to eat at an airport.

The section I was in had some automated sandwich kiosk and a burrito joint that had a huge line that wasn't moving. Walked to another section that had a Shake Shack and some kind of pizza place. Ordering at Shake Shack was fine but it took about 20 minutes to get my order. On the plus side there was an old guy who was also waiting and telling the dirtiest jokes to anyone that would listen.

To me January in Las Vegas means CES. This almost feels like the TSA is trying to get in on the fun and have a product launch at CES 2024

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