Workers at J.F.K. Say Security Inspections Are Rushed

Uli Seit for The New York Times

Tasleema Mohamed, an airport security worker for Global Elite Group, said a focus on speed is jeopardizing passenger safety.

By SARAH MASLIN NIR

Published: September 26, 2012

After passengers exit each plane at John F. Kennedy International Airport, squads of caterers and cleaners troop on and prepare the aircraft for the next flight.

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Once cleared of crumbs and discarded magazines, each empty plane gets another sort of once-over, this time from a crew of security agents who, as part of federally mandated security measures, conduct a search of every cabin for items left behind, including weapons, explosives and drugs. They are supposed to open every overhead bin, flip down each tray table and probe all the seat-back pockets, one by one.

But at Kennedy, one of the world’s busiest airports, these inspections are up against efforts to avoid delaying flights. Some checks that should take hours are done in mere minutes — sometimes as many as half the seats on a jetliner are skipped altogether — according to a group of the privately contracted security employees who conduct the inspections.

The employees say they are undertrained, often equipped with nonfunctioning metal detectors and compelled, daily, to compromise safety to get planes back in the sky as fast as possible. The allegations are contained in a formal complaint they are to file with the Transportation Security Administration on Thursday. The complaint was written on behalf of 30 of the 120 people employed at Kennedy by a contractor, Global Elite Group, based in Garden City, on Long Island. The company provides a variety of security services for about 20 airlines at Kennedy and at more than two dozen national and international sites. The cabin inspection service at Kennedy includes screening food-service workers and cleaning crews with metal-detector wands, keeping logs of who may board during a plane’s downtime, as well as visually inspecting the entire aircraft.

But if a flight touches down behind schedule, the employees said, airline representatives complain to the Global employee managing the inspection, who in turn pushes the workers to breeze through their searches. Although security workers say the checks are supposed to be conducted on empty planes, they also say they have been forced to begin while caterers and cleaners were still working up and down the aisles.

“Every little nook and cranny that someone can put something in, we are supposed to be searching,” said Tasleema Mohamed, 35, who has worked for Global for more than six years. “My concern is that whenever they have a flight that is in late, and speed up our job, they are accommodating the airline but there is still a hazard.”

Global Elite Group was made aware of the complaints only this week, said Karen Duane Johnson, the company’s public relations director. She said the employees were lying.

“Security is our business,” she said. “We would never put the flying public at risk, ever, ever.”

Ms. Johnson said that surprise audits by the Transportation Security Administration as well as the company’s own frequent internal inspections prevented the situations the employees described.

“We’re under a microscope,” she said. “It is impossible for these allegations to really take place.”

The exact rules about how an inspection is carried out are not made public and vary from airline to airline, though the procedures must all be approved by the T.S.A., according to Michael J. Restovich, a former assistant administrator with the agency who is now a consultant for Command Consulting Group, a security and consulting company.

Mr. Restovich said that the rigorous passenger and employee screening procedures introduced after the attacks of Sept. 11 have decreased the chances of finding dangerous materials in the aircraft. Indeed, those who inspect the aircraft say they rarely find anything that raises an eyebrow.

David A. Castelveter, a T.S.A. communications director, declined to speak about the specific complaint, which the agency had not yet received, but said that, in general, a complaint could prompt an investigation, fines or an order to an airline to terminate its contracts with a company.

Jeffrey Uyanik, 20, who started with Global in the summer, said recently that he was told to search a late 200-seat plane in three minutes. A full inspection for a plane that size, he said, takes at least 25 minutes.

“It was ridiculous; there is no way you could perfectly search a plane and make sure it’s safe in that amount of time,” he said. Only half the plane’s seats were checked before Mr. Uyanik was hustled out, he said.

Though the workers, who say they are paid $8 to $11 an hour, are not unionized, the complaint was supported by a service workers’ union, SEIU-32BJ, after several workers reached out to union organizers this summer. Their concerns extend beyond security to pay, benefits and workplace treatment.

In August, employees of another security contractor, Air Serv, which regulates the vehicles entering certain areas of the airport, also complained to the T.S.A. about poor training and malfunctioning equipment.

Sometimes, the inspections of cabins are incredibly meticulous, the Global employees said: whenever an auditor from the T.S.A. pops by.

“Everything gets checked when T.S.A. is around,” Ms. Mohamed, the Global employee, said. “If it’s a flight that they usually rush on because it’s a quick turnaround, they won’t. That flight will take a delay that day.”