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Will TSA's New Union Supercharge Push for Private Airport Screeners?

We've talked about this before, but TSA officials routinely complain that they just can't catch a PR break. This week TSA agents identified and stopped an actual real-life kidnapping in Miami, where the kidnappers were trying to smuggle the victim through the airport like something out of a movie, in addition to intercepting the usual bevy of hidden weapons.

But when Congress held a hearing this week about the airport security agency, the discussion focused on how agents keep committing crimes, how airports keep privatizing their screeners, and how the new TSA union is going to be a disaster. Of course in fairness to Congress - and there's a phrase we don't usually bust out - all of those things are totally true.

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Another Airport Will Now Deliver Your Food Straight to the Gate

Total laziness—we mean convenience—is on its way over to Sacramento International Airport, as HMSHost introduces their tasty travel app to hungry travelers. We’ve already mentioned how ordering up lunch, dinner, or just a snack is an option at airports like MSP, JFK, and ORD, but now the fun has arrived at SMF.

Esquire Grill or Burgers & Brew are the two initial offerings available through the B4 YOU BOARD app. Salads, cheeseburgers, and even macaroni and cheese are available at your fingertips, and then things will be delivered right to your where you’ve parked yourself near the gate. It sounds like the serving hours are scheduled between 10:30am and 6:30pm each and every day, so you might just have to order the old fashioned way if you’re looking for some breakfast.

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Wait. The TSA Intercepts How Many Guns Per Day in Airports?

Ideally we'd like to spend this post criticizing TSA for various inadequacies implicit and explicit. There's something not quite right about the agency's new "we'll retest for radiation levels but not really" announcement on full-body scanners, especially given its extensive and well-documented past dissembling on the issue. There are still issues to discuss from last year about the contradictions in pushing for private TSA baggage screeners. We'd like to know why it was necessary to tase a traveler to the point of hospitalization at the Sacramento International Airport. Someone should ask what steps are being taken to prevent a repeat of the $40,000-stealing TSA agent. And isn't there something wrong with airport security when $400,000 worth of coins are getting left at security every year by flustered travelers?

But we can't talk about any of that, because people won't stop trying to bring weapons on airplanes. Especially guns. Lots and lots of guns. So instead of this post being about the many ways TSA makes traveling worse, it's about one very specific way that travelers make traveling worse.

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Central Terminal B Debuts Today at Sacramento International Airport

For those flying out of Northern California this week, it’s important to do a little airport terminal review, as things are changing for the better over at Sacramento International Airport. After months and years of bulldozers and traffic cones it’s finally time to crack open the new terminal, as Central Terminal B opens to the public—and the planes—today.

Aeromexico, JetBlue, Frontier, American Airlines, Alaska Airlines, Hawaiian, and Southwest are all going to be taking off and landing from the new place—sorry Delta, United, and US Airways.

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Add It to Your iCal: Sacramento's New Airport Terminal Will Throw a Test-Run Party

For those in Northern California there’s another chance to take in that new airport smell now that the freshness of Terminal 2 at SFO has started to fade.

Workers at Sacramento International Airport have been doing their best to get Central Terminal B ready for business, and it looks like things will be ready for airplanes, passengers, and the TSA way ahead of schedule. Originally it wasn’t set to debut to the traveling public until 2012, but it looks like the new building will actually be ready to go at the beginning of October.

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Airport WiFi: Surfing East Coast and West

Contribute your airport wireless report by leaving it in comments, uploading your airport photo to Jaunted Flickr Photo Pool, or via email, and we will add it to our U.S. Airport Wireless map.

We'd hate for you to forget about our Airport WiFi Guide, our up-to-date map of spots with free Internet access.

Reader Bruce wrote in to tell us about the situation at Charlotte-Douglas International, which sounds pretty cushy:

Charlotte-Douglas offers *free* wi-fi in all concourses, lounges and restaurants, even on the land side. There are comfy rocking chairs and accessible power outlets everywhere, too. And yes, this is full access, not just a jump to the paid service vendors.

We also hear that San Diego, Virgin America's latest destination, has free internet access. Further north, Sacramento International has a free signal throughout its facilities.

Keep sending in those tips, WiFi fans!

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