Every second counts just before loved ones deploy across the globe.
To help military families savor these final moments, the Transportation Security Administration has established a program to allow access to boarding gates without tickets.
Many stateside airlines offer gate passes to non-ticketed family members who would like to drop troops off at the boarding gates or pick them up there on their return home.
“TSA has always worked with the military and their families to allow them to say their goodbyes past the checkpoints,” Deirdre O’Sullivan, a TSA spokeswoman said of the pass program during a telephone interview Friday. Though it is not new, it is something military members can be reminded of periodically.
In an e-mail to Stars and Stripes, TSA said it has asked its federal security directors, as well as all airlines and airports, to adopt procedures that allow airline gate access to military family members whenever possible.
However, while TSA provides guidelines for allowing non-ticketed individuals into restricted areas to air carriers, the final decision is a function of the carriers and the airports, according to the TSA e-mail. Therefore passes may not always be available.
O’Sullivan said anyone wishing a pass should just ask for one. She said the passes are created and distributed at airline ticket counters, and she suggested family members collect the passes while the troops obtain their boarding passes.
If a gate pass is provided, then it must be shown along with a government-issued photo ID at screening checkpoints. Family members and their property will be required to go through the security screening process.
O’Sullivan said larger airports with a big United Service Organizations presence, such as the Baltimore/Washington International Airport, are used to accommodating military family members.
“Within parameters necessary to maintain security in the sterile area, TSA fully supports allowing military family members to accompany deploying servicemembers or to meet servicemembers returning from deployment,” the TSA e-mail stated.
In cases involving arriving or deploying military charter flights, military representatives should contact TSA on behalf of family members, TSA officials said.
O’Sullivan said TSA has no control of airline activity in foreign countries and said she does not think these passes are offered at overseas airports.
But, “you can ask,” she said, since airlines that offer the passes stateside might have similar policies overseas.
