In January, the US Transportation Security Administration stopped providing personnel to guard exits in the secure, “airside” areas of some airports, including New York’s JFK and LaGuardia. As part of a measure to reduce its 2014 budget by $88 million, it transferred control of exit-lane access to local airport authorities.
Airport advocates who object point to the shutdown of Newark International for several hours and subsequent flight delays after a nonpassenger snuck through an exit lane to kiss his girlfriend good-bye in 2010.
Some airports have begun finding solutions that do not require paying exit guards. Syracuse and Atlantic City airports installed portals that each close behind a couple of people at a time and only open outward to the nonsecure side.