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Steven Frischling
Live: HVN
Work: JFK-SFO-CDG-HKG
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Steven Frischling, aka: Fish, is globe hopping professional photographer, airline emerging media consultant working with large global airlines and founder of The Travel Strategist. Fish has racked up more than 1,000,000 miles since he started to track his mileage in 2005.

Fish's travel tends to be less than leisurely, including flying from New York to Basrah, Iraq, for six hours; Hong Kong for eight hours, Kuwait City for two hours and traveling around the world in 3.5 days to shoot a series of photo assignments in 4 cities and 4 countries on 3 separate continents.

Fish grew up at the end of New York's JFK International Airport's Runway 4R/22L, which probably explains his enjoyment of watching planes, fly overhead. When not shooting photos or traveling Fish designs camera bags, hones is expertise on airline security and spends his time at home cheering for the Red Sox with his 3 kids 102 yards from the ocean.

Letter of the Day : The TSA Should Be At All Airports Flying To The US

12.28.2009 | Author: flyingfish | Posted in Uncategorized

28/12/2009 – Letter of the Day : The TSA Should Be At All Airports Flying To The US

This morning while reading a few dozen emails and sorting through 30+ comments regarding the events surrounding Delta Air Lines Flight 253 and the TSA implementing Security Directive SD-1544-09-06 I received an e-mail with a question that caught my eye.

The email poses this question…

“Foreign airports appear to have insufficient security measures. The TSA Should Be At All Airports Flying To The US. Why haven’t they done this yet?” – Linda

Linda there are many factors why TSA screeners are not posted at airports globally. The fact of the matter is this, TSA agents are posted at a few airports outside the United States, such as Shannon, Ireland and Canadian gateways to the United States, however the US has absolutely no right to post TSA agents globally.

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is part of the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which is a Federal Agency. While the United States has law enforcement and military personnel posted globally, it must be at the invitation of the host nation. Not only would posting TSA screeners globally cost an exorbitant amount of money, but it would also be a bad move politically.

Overall I feel that most TSA screeners do their job well. They do it with professionalism and diligence…I also have the same opinion of Airport Security personnel from other nations, including the UK, France, Hong Kong, China, Bahrain, Kuwait, Canada, The Netherlands, Germany, Italy, etc etc. The United States has absolutely no right to go into these nations and require them to terminate their airport security and implement the TSA.

Each country can create a security directive for flights headed to their nation, but they cannot impose their own security forces and law enforcement on a foreign nation.

Hope that answers your question.

Happy Flying!

4 Responses

  1. CJ December 28th, 2009 at 6:50 pm

    Security screening in Canada and Ireland on flights to the US isn’t done by the TSA; it’s done by local agencies (in Canada, CATSA). You’re confusing customs pre-clearance with security screening.

  2. flyingfish December 28th, 2009 at 7:14 pm

    According to the TSA, there are TSA Agents on-site at these locations

    Happy Flying!

    -Fish

  3. Hin Denberg December 29th, 2009 at 9:33 am

    Why not require local agencies screening for inbound flights to adhere to TSA standards?
    Even better, make them adhere to a system that works

  4. Maura December 31st, 2009 at 8:54 am

    I’ve actually had found that airport screening for flights to the US from Seoul, Tokyo and London to be much much more thorough than what the TSA does in the US. I’m sure this isn’t the case with all international airports, but just because it’s outside the US doesn’t make it a security risk.

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