For decades, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International has been the busiest airport in the world. Over 100 million passengers a year. The single most important screening checkpoint in the United States. And throughout the recent government shutdown, more than a third of its TSA screeners simply did not show up for work. Now Atlanta’s airport authority is openly exploring something no major U.S. hub has ever done: replacing the federal Transportation Security Administration with a private security contractor.

What 36% absent looks like at ATL

During the most acute days of the recent shutdown, Atlanta’s TSA staffing dropped to barely two-thirds of normal levels. The result was visible to anyone who happened to fly through ATL’s domestic terminals: security lines snaking the entire length of the main terminal, two-and-three-hour wait times for routine screening, passengers missing connections, gate agents holding flights that should not have been held, and the kind of operational meltdown that makes the case for change irresistible to a sitting airport authority.

The Atlanta airport board is not waiting to see if the shutdown happens again. It has already initiated a feasibility study under the TSA’s existing Screening Partnership Program — the legal framework that allows U.S. airports to opt out of direct federal screening in favour of private contractors operating under TSA standards and oversight.

How the Screening Partnership Program actually works

Counter to popular assumption, the option to replace the TSA with private screeners has existed since the 2001 Aviation and Transportation Security Act that created the agency in the first place. The Screening Partnership Program — SPP — allows any U.S. commercial airport to apply to opt out of TSA-employed screening and contract directly with a private security firm. The contractor must use TSA-trained personnel, TSA-approved equipment, TSA-mandated procedures, and TSA-set passenger throughput standards. The TSA retains regulatory authority and conducts the same audits.

What changes is the employment relationship. The screeners work for the contractor, not for the federal government. They are not subject to federal hiring freezes, federal pay caps, or government shutdowns. The contractor pays them whether Congress passes a budget or not. That is the entire point.

Who else has done this

San Francisco International — the eighth-busiest U.S. airport — has been under private screening since 2002, contracted to Covenant Aviation Security. Kansas City International. Glacier Park International. Around twenty airports total, mostly small to mid-sized regional facilities. None at the scale of Atlanta. If ATL switches, it would be by far the largest airport in the SPP — and the political signal would be unmissable.

What stays the same — and what does not

For the passenger, the experience would be largely identical. Same shoes-off, same liquids rule, same belt-removal, same body scanners, same uniform-looking screeners. The TSA would still own the rulebook and the federal background-check apparatus. PreCheck would still work the same way. Global Entry, CLEAR — all unchanged.

What changes is who pays the screeners. The TSA’s screener workforce — the largest single category of federal civilian employment after the Postal Service — would shrink by several thousand people in Atlanta alone. The contractor would draw from a similar pool, often hiring the same people who used to work for TSA. The wage structure would shift from federal pay scale to market rate. The labour-union picture would change. The political picture — particularly in Washington — would change significantly.

It is not yet certain Atlanta will make the switch. The airport board votes later this year. What is certain is that the conversation has now moved out of academic policy circles and into a live procurement question at the busiest aviation chokepoint in the world.

Sources: Simple Flying; Atlanta Journal-Constitution; FAA airport rankings; TSA Screening Partnership Program documentation.