If you’re flying, KCI remains calm during airport security chaos. Here’s why | Opinion
Flying is always a hassle. But it seems to be less of a hassle these days at Kansas City International Airport.
The security checklines? They still work at KCI, or at least they work as well as they ever have.
That’s not the case at airports around the country. You’ve probably seen the TV images of angry, tired and frustrated passengers stuck in overcrowded terminals, the victims of a partial government shutdown while Democrats and Republicans duel over immigration enforcement.
Agents of the Transportation Security Administration — the folks who screen you and your luggage — aren’t getting paid these days. Some of them have walked off the job. But people are still flying. Hence the chaos.
That’s why on Monday, President Donald Trump ordered agents of Immigration and Customs Enforcement into the nation’s airports to lend a hand.
“ICE will do the job far better than ever done before!” the president posted to Truth Social over the weekend.
We’ll see about that. But as of Monday morning, there were no ICE agents at KCI.
They’re not needed.
The airport “has a bit of a different setup when it comes to our security screeners,” Jackson Overstreet, a spokesman for the Kansas City Aviation Department, said via email.
Here’s the deal: VMD — a private company — provides the security screening services at KCI. The federal government allows the arrangement under its Screening Partnership Program.
And, well, the company is still paying its employees.
The result is that KCI’s security checklines “have been operating as expected,” Overstreet said, “so we’re a bit insulated from some of these issues causing longer lines.”
It’s not clear that Kansas City is an example for the rest of the country, though. Fewer than two dozen airports are listed as participants in the private security program, mostly midsized destinations like Atlantic City International Airport and Sioux Falls Regional Airport.
There is some talk about privatizing TSA’s functions, though, which might come as a surprise to anybody who remembers that TSA was created in the aftermath of 9/11 with the precise mission of taking airport security out of the hands of private companies.
We’ve come full circle.
The good news, though, is that folks flying out of Kansas City are being spared the sight of ICE agents loitering in airport terminals, seemingly unsure of what to do with themselves. The nation’s airports are a mess. KCI, happily, is the exception for now.
This story was originally published March 23, 2026 at 12:58 PM.
