Nico Melendez Quotations

Why someone would leave $4,000 in their checked luggage is beyond me. Why don't they just take the $4,000 and leave it on the seat at Aloha Stadium during a football game and let somebody pick it up? Because that's essentially what they did.

We're going to implement an element of random secondary inspections at the checkpoint. But because it's random, we're not going to offer any details.

If we were to find that somebody did get through a checkpoint with pepper spray or any other kinds of spray for that matter that are prohibited, certainly there would be cause for concern. If passengers think they got through security accidentally with something that they shouldn't have, we invite them to please come back to the checkpoint and tell our supervisors, tell our managers at the checkpoints so that we can take immediate action.

If Thanksgiving was any indication -- it's much busier than Christmas, and we had no real problems -- things will be fine.

It blows air across your body and dislodges microscopic particles that you may have been in contact with, thereby screening for explosives.

It is a continual progression. We need to stay one step ahead.

We will research and investigate each claim fully and take steps when necessary because we expect our screeners to live up to a higher standard than anyone else.

We're not aware of that specific case, so there's nothing we can do about a possible meat cleaver getting through security. I can tell you that security today is better than it ever has been. We constantly train and re-train our screeners at the security checkpoints.

We have good men and women who are dedicated to the security of aviation and to the security of the transportation system, and I think we need to recognize that we have more good people working for us than we do bad.

TSA is interested in state-of-the-art technology and enhancing the security screening system while increasing convenience for our customers. Certainly explosives detection is something we're interested in.

We fully expect passengers to be able to come to LAX this summer and be able to move through the checkpoints in a timely manner.

We don't want our screeners to be acting inappropriately, because we are in a position of public trust and if we violate that trust, then we're not doing our job.

As far as I can tell, things are status quo. There's nothing out of the ordinary.

They're working weird shifts, they're working long hours and working under extreme conditions and working under conditions, where they have to deal with passengers that sometimes are not too friendly.

A lot of times we have passengers make claims against us as well, but when we go back and look at videotape, we see that another passenger took it from them at the security checkpoint and it had nothing to do with our screeners.

It's everything you can possibly imagine people shouldn't take to the airport.

The TSA is constantly in pursuit of new technology to improve security and enhance our explosive-detection capabilities.

The TSA believes that these small items don't pose a threat to aviation security.

But if you leave and you go somewhere else and then you call a week, two weeks, three weeks later, it certainly makes it more difficult to research that.

Honolulu has rather small numbers when you consider millions of passengers leave or come into Honolulu every year. One is certainly too many, but if we're going to have a number, I'd rather have it be a low number than something that's monumental.