Not at all. They're the gatekeepers of the queue for access the inspection area behind the line, where the real bottleneck exists.
The ID check is currently an excuse to put that gatekeeper out front; they could do it as part of the inspection area and not impact a single thing. It could even be easily automated (it effectively is).
At the airport I regularly fly out of the id check is performed as part of the inspection area. There is a TSA id check station directly before each body/carry-on scanning station.
Comments
Not at all. They're the gatekeepers of the queue for access the inspection area behind the line, where the real bottleneck exists.
The ID check is currently an excuse to put that gatekeeper out front; they could do it as part of the inspection area and not impact a single thing. It could even be easily automated (it effectively is).
At the airport I regularly fly out of the id check is performed as part of the inspection area. There is a TSA id check station directly before each body/carry-on scanning station.