Registration for trusted traveler programs has skyrocketed
under Neffenger. When he took over the TSA in the summer of 2015, enrollment in
TSA Precheck averaged about 3,000 new names per day. A year later, it was
hitting as many as 20,000 per day, and overall enrollment in trusted traveler
programs—which also include Global Entry, Nexus and SENTRI—has reached more
than 12 million.
That Precheck boost came in part from a TSA advertising push
and its partnerships with credit card and travel supplier reward programs, but
Neffenger has been taking the case for enrollment directly to the corporate
travel buyer, as well. Working with a private vendor to set up pop-up
enrollment centers at major events like the Global Business Travel Association's
annual conference and expo. It has worked with airlines to create on-site
enrollment at clients' offices so corporate travelers can sign up at work. The
TSA also worked with Microsoft, which bought Precheck for its frequent
travelers, to develop a business case to present to other large companies that
might do the same.
Of course, early adopters of Precheck might not be thrilled
to see their lines getting longer, but greater enrollment means the TSA can
devote more resources to Precheck lines. In tandem with the enrollment boost,
TSA has partnered with airlines to automate lines in busy airports—making bin
return automatic like a bowling ball return, for example—to speed up the
process without compromising security.
Neffenger ultimately would like to see everyone who takes
even a few trips per year enrolled in a trusted traveler program. The TSA could
examine ways to make the security experience even faster for those willing to
share more personal information, he said. "In an ideal world, you'd have a
fully vetted population traveling. It significantly reduces risk and gives us
the opportunity to doing more risk categorization, so you can envision having a
population of people who are even more trusted than others."