Airports take over exit security

In January, the US Transportation Security Administration stopped providing personnel to guard exits in the secure, “airside” areas of some airports, including New York’s JFK and LaGuardia. As part of a measure to reduce its 2014 budget by $88 million, it transferred control of exit-lane access to local airport authorities.

Airport advocates who object point to the shutdown of Newark International for several hours and subsequent flight delays after a nonpassenger snuck through an exit lane to kiss his girlfriend good-bye in 2010.

Some airports have begun finding solutions that do not require paying exit guards. Syracuse and Atlantic City airports installed portals that each close behind a couple of people at a time and only open outward to the nonsecure side.