Skift Take

The current state of U.S. airport security appears to be a crapshoot depending on what airport you find yourself at.

What to Know Now

Thanks to a tidal wave of bad press and a country full of apoplectic travelers, the TSA is fast-tracking an overhaul of the beleaguered agency this week, starting with a reshuffle of the management team. Some of it may be just for show, but other efforts, including new support from American and United, may really help speed the process.

Meanwhile, Frommer’s is reporting that TSA officers at Washington Dulles Airport and others across the country are speeding up lines by letting passengers leave shoes on and keep their bags packed (opposed to the standard process of taking out electronics and liquids). But if that’s the case, what’s the advantage of PreCheck?

Social Quote of the Day

.@TSA at @Dulles_Airport literally yelling at people not to take off shoes or take liquids out of carryon. Except that’s what we normally do

@AlexCre8tive

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Airlines

Lufthansa’s Growth Plans Are in Trouble Because It Can’t Hire Enough Flight Attendants: Deutsche Lufthansa AG is struggling to hire cabin crews for new routes, putting growth plans at risk as low wages and years of labor conflict complicate the airline’s recruiting amid a tight German job market. Read more at Skift

Airline Fares Are Really Low and Airlines Want to Raise Them: Enjoy lower airfares while you can. Airlines are taking steps to push prices higher by next year. Read more at Skift

Why Car Rental Giants Are Learning Lessons From Airlines: Not long ago the U.S. had eight national airlines, each fighting the other for scraps in an economic cycle of boom and bust. Now there are just four, and they make billions of dollars. Read more at Skift

American Airlines Enters the Battle for Elite Passengers: More coal went into the fire powering the battle for elite airline customers last week after American Airlines launched a campaign giving elite status away to targeted customers. Read more at Skift

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Airports

Airlines and Airports Preparing to Spend Millions to Cut Security Line Times: U.S. airlines and airports are spending millions on added workers to avoid a repeat of long security lines, as the coming Memorial Day weekend kicks off what’s expected to be a record year for summer travel. Read more at Skift

TSA Boss Called Back to Washington to Explain Airport Lines to Congress: The head of the Transportation Security Administration is heading back to Capitol Hill Wednesday to try to explain what his agency is doing to deal with increasingly long airport security lines that have already snarled the fledgling summer travel season. Read more at Skift

State of Global Travel 2016: 5 Charts on the Most Connected Airports: We’ve pulled out five charts that give us a look at the world’s most active or connected airports by routes, size, and (since we live in a digital world) Wi-Fi too. Read more at Skift

Firing of TSA Security Chief Won’t Fix U.S. Airport Line Congestion: The Transportation Security Administration has ousted its head of security operations and put new leadership in charge of screening operations at a major international airport, but long checkpoint lines and travel headaches already pervading the busy summer travel season are likely to continue. Read more at Skift

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Tech

Gett Raises $300 Million From Volkswagen to Better Challenge Uber, Lyft: Gett Inc., a taxi-ordering application that competes with Uber Technologies Inc., raised $300 million in a strategic investment from German carmaker Volkswagen AG to fund its growth in Europe and New York City. Read more at Skift

CEO Interview: The 15-Year-Old Corporate Travel Company That Wants to Be a Startup: Travel and expense service provider Deem has seemingly been stuck in limbo for years. After raising more than half a billion dollars and offering dozens of different products across the travel ecosystem, the company is now looking to pare down its offerings to a few core areas. Read more at Skift

There’s a Safety Gap Separating Female and Male Business Travelers: Men and women travel differently, and assume different risks when traveling for business. The challenge for companies and travel managers alike is how to ensure business travelers are not only safe, but comfortable, when on the road. Read more at Skift

London’s Tube Finally Begins Testing 24-Hour Service: Trains will run all night at the weekend from August 19 on two lines of the London Underground metro network in what new Mayor Sadiq Khan said on Monday would be a boost to the British capital’s night-time economy. Read more at Skift
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Hotels

9 Largest Hotel Loyalty Programs: Growing Members Faster Than Engagement: As major hotel chains make a big push this year to increase the size of their loyalty programs through book-direct campaigns, they might take satisfaction in the fact that their programs grew at a healthy pace in 2015 but that presents a potential challenge — a large chunk of their rosters are inactive. Read more at Skift

Robert De Niro Is Opening a Luxury Hotel in London: Following the success of his Greenwich Hotel in NYC, the actor has announced plans to open the Wellington Hotel in Covent Garden. Read more at Conde Nast Traveler

Airbnb and the Solo Female Business Traveler: Airbnb’s strengths can also be liabilities for many solo female business travelers. Read more at Skift

Marriott, Hyatt and Hilton Are Shedding Their Dated Design Legacies: It wasn’t that long ago when Marriott, Hyatt, and Hilton were never uttered in the same sentence as the phrases “trendy design” or “hip social spaces.” Read more at Skift

Your Turn

The guys at Bluesmart just launched the next revision of their smart luggage — the Bluesmart Black Edition. Congratulations to Diego and Tomi.

Tips and Comments

Can be sent to gm[at]skift[dot]com or to @grantkmartin

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Photo credit: TSA agents man the checkpoint for pre-cleared passengers at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. Kent D. Johnson / AP Photo/Atlanta Journal-Constitution

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