SFO has had private security, not TSA, this whole time, and while it’s not wildly better, it’s definitely the best security at a major US airport.
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Discussion
Schiphol airport has "private security" too. There's some military police present at the airport for customs and general security, but for mundane baggage checking.
Of course I fully expect the US to screw this up in every conceivable way. But at least cities and state governments have an incentive to insist that their airports don't suck.
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Schiphol's security checking is probably among the smoothest currently. It had gone down soon after COVID, took about a year or so to recover.
The immigration experience is pretty bad though, there are fewer and fewer booths with staff, and longer queues. Of course if you are EU citizen, and willing to hand over biometric data, the automatic gates seem efficient. Although, doesn't seem to work for people traveling with kids.
Afaik biometric passports are not optional in the EU, so I always use those gates. It's typically very quick on the way out, but on the way in they turn the machines off and you might have to wait half an hour because there's only one guy on duty for EU passports. Part of the reason is because our current government decided to waste a bunch of staff to patrol the German and Belgium border.
Ah didn't realise biometric passports are mandatory. It still doesn't seem to work for kids though.