TSA Gold+ is worth its weight as a major step toward airport security privatization

For more than two decades, debate over airport security has largely centered on whether the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) should continue conducting passenger screening itself, allow a greater role for private companies, or have airport security completely privatized.

That debate has taken on new relevance with the agency’s recently announced Gold+ program, which expands the role of private contractors in managing airport security operations.

Tampa International Airport and Des Moines International Airport are among the first to implement the program. Although it is not the final word on airport security reform, Gold+ deserves attention as a significant shift in the direction of greater private-sector responsibility.

To understand why Gold+ matters, it is important to understand the limits of the TSA’s existing privatization efforts. The Screening Partnership Program (SPP) was created to allow private companies to perform airport screening, but it did not fundamentally change how security operations were managed. Under SPP, TSA sets requirements and oversees much of the technology, equipment, and operational framework.

Gold+ takes a broader approach. Under the program, contractors are responsible not just for staffing checkpoints but for managing the larger operation, including workforce, technology, equipment maintenance, and checkpoint performance. Unlike SPP, which primarily shifted the screening workforce from government employees to private employees, Gold+ places authority for a much larger portion of the security operation in private hands.

That distinction matters because firms can only improve outcomes when they have meaningful control over the factors that drive performance. By giving contractors greater authority over staffing, equipment, and operations, Gold+ creates more opportunities for providers to identify efficiencies, reduce delays, and adopt innovative approaches.

Gold+ also strengthens these incentives through a performance-based payment structure. Contractors can earn incentive payments up to 12 percent above the fixed-price contract value for exceeding metrics related to security, efficiency, customer service, and innovation.

Gold+’s fixed-price contracts better align operational decisions with financial consequences because contractors generally retain savings from operating more efficiently while absorbing the costs of overruns or poor management decisions. This gives providers greater ownership over operational choices and encourages them to make investments that improve long-term performance, such as better staffing practices, preventive maintenance, and more efficient checkpoint operations.

While this does not replicate the full risk and reward structure of a competitive market, it is a significant improvement over SPP’s more limited model because it expands both responsibility and incentives. Even so, full privatization remains the preferable long-term model because competitive markets create the strongest incentives for efficiency, accountability, and innovation.

Although Gold+ represents a meaningful step toward privatization, it does not constitute full privatization. The program remains a government-managed contracting system that increases private responsibility without fully transferring decision-making authority.

Contractors may manage workforce, technology, and checkpoint operations, but TSA retains authority over security requirements, performance standards, compliance monitoring, and contractor evaluations. Gold+ therefore gives private operators greater responsibility, but within a framework still designed and controlled by TSA.

More importantly, Gold+ does not create competition for airport customers. Companies compete for TSA contracts rather than airports’ business, which means that they cannot fully replicate the market discipline created when providers must compete openly to attract and retain customers.

In a competitive market, providers that deliver better security, greater efficiency, or a better passenger experience are rewarded with more business, while those that underperform risk losing customers. Under Gold+, contractors are still primarily accountable to TSA’s requirements and evaluation processes.

Gold+ deserves credit because it moves airport security in the right direction. It demonstrates that changing who is responsible for security operations can produce meaningful improvements, even within the existing TSA framework. By giving private operators a larger role, Gold+ shows the potential benefits of pivoting toward a more market-oriented approach.

Yet full privatization remains the ultimate objective because only true competition can create the strongest pressure for efficiency, innovation, and accountability. Expanding Gold+ is a worthwhile reform in the near term, particularly where full privatization remains politically difficult.

Gold+ is a clear improvement over TSA-operated security and SPP because it gives private operators greater responsibility for managing operations and creates stronger incentives to improve performance. While better contracts can improve government programs, only competition can create the strongest incentives for lasting improvement.