Transportation Security Officer
Quick Facts
What They Do
A Transportation Security Officer monitors passengers and activity at airports, train stations and ship terminals to watch for threats to security or passenger safety. Screens passengers, luggage or freight to look for weapons or dangerous materials; patrols areas where vehicles are loaded or unloaded; uses technology, interviews and searches for screening and monitoring passengers.
Core Tasks:
- Inspect carry-on items, using x-ray viewing equipment, to determine whether items contain objects that warrant further investigation.
- Search carry-on or checked baggage by hand when it is suspected to contain prohibited items such as weapons.
- Check passengers' tickets to ensure that they are valid, and to determine whether passengers have designations that require special handling, such as providing photo identification.
- Test baggage for any explosive materials, using equipment such as explosive detection machines or chemical swab systems.
- Notify supervisors or other appropriate personnel when security breaches occur.
- Perform pat-down or hand-held wand searches of passengers who have triggered machine alarms, who are unable to pass through metal detectors, or who have been randomly identified for such searches.
- Decide whether baggage that triggers alarms should be searched or should be allowed to pass through.
- Send checked baggage through automated screening machines, and set bags aside for searching or rescreening as indicated by equipment.
- Follow those who breach security until police or other security personnel arrive to apprehend them.
- Inform other screeners when baggage should not be opened because it might contain explosives.
- Inspect checked baggage for signs of tampering.
- Ask passengers to remove shoes and divest themselves of metal objects prior to walking through metal detectors.
- Close entry areas following security breaches or reopen areas after receiving notification that the airport is secure.
- Challenge suspicious people, requesting their badges and asking what their business is in a particular areas.
- Patrol work areas to detect any suspicious items.
- Contact police directly in cases of urgent security issues, using phones or two-way radios.
- Record information about any baggage that sets off alarms in monitoring equipment.
- Watch for potentially dangerous persons whose pictures are posted at checkpoints.
- Contact leads or supervisors to discuss objects of concern that are not on prohibited object lists.
- Confiscate dangerous items and hazardous materials found in opened bags and turn them over to airlines for disposal.
- Monitor passenger flow through screening checkpoints to ensure order and efficiency.
- Inform passengers of how to mail prohibited items to themselves, or confiscate these items.
- Provide directions and respond to passenger inquiries.
- Direct passengers to areas where they can pick up their baggage after screening is complete.
What to expect as a Transportation Security Officer
78% of people achieve this level of education.
See Transportation Security Officer related courses on Tallo
215 openings for Transportation Security Officers
Career Progression
in United States (Nation)
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