News We Already Knew: TSA Gets Negative Reviews From Frequent Flyers

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According to a recent poll in Frequent Business Traveler magazine that was conducted in partnership with FlyerTalk, an overwhelming 85% of frequent travelers give the TSA a big thumbs down. Well, to be specific, 85% of poll respondents said the TSA was doing a poor or fair job, with just 15% giving the TSA a positive review. The survey polled 2,415 people between August 9 - September 10, 2013.

Digging down into the numbers a little further, 66% - two thirds - said that the TSA's procedures were not effective at preventing a terrorist incident on an aircraft and just 1.2% of those polled said the TSA was very effective at doing so.

Although 45% of those polled said they were not satisfied with their most recent security experience, I actually thought that number would be higher based on the other responses, but a lot of people abstained or were neutral since just under 30% were satisfied.

What was also interesting is that the cross-section of people polled must have been a bit rarefied since 45.9% of the pollees had used TSA PreCheck, which is a high proportion compared to the general flying public, and what piqued my interest here was that over 80% of those people were satisfied by the experience.

Despite the low numbers, the TSA actually improved from a similar poll conducted last year (last year, 5% more people said the TSA was doing a poor job at screening), though the perceived effectiveness of the agency's procedures toward preventing terrorism actually dropped 10% from last year. This year's respondents also included 10% more people who had experienced TSA PreCheck and of those people 7% more this year said that their PreCheck experience was positive.

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So overall it looks like the majority of the flying public still finds the TSA to be bad at its job - it's probably all those long lines snaking through airport terminals, having to strip practically to your underwear and remove pretty much everything from your carry-on before being put in a body scanner like the chamber that stole Superman's powers before being let on your plane - a disheveled, demeaned mess.

But the good news is that TSA PreCheck is actually working better than ever (at least in people's opinions) and making the security process a lot easier. Personally, I love PreCheck as well as the government's other Trusted Traveler programs like Global Entry (which I got for free thanks to my Platinum Card from American Express), and find them to be time-saving measure that actually make my airport experience quite pleasant. But what do you think?

[poll id="42"]

For more information on TSA PreCheck and Global Entry, check out these posts:
-Global Entry FAQ And Ways To Get It For Free
-My Experience Getting Refunded for Global Entry Using My Amex Platinum Card
-Top 12 Things You Didn't Know About Global Entry
-My Father's Day Present – An Additional Amex Platinum Card For Dad
-Getting Around the Global Entry Appointment Backlog
-Global Entry Rocks My World
-Global Entry Fee Now Waived for Amex Platinum Card Members