International Air Passengers: Staffing Model for Airport Inspections Personnel Can Be Improved
Published: 2005-07-15T00:00:00

Fast Facts:

Highlights:
section_title: Why GAO Did This Study
paragraphs: While the Enhanced Border Security and Visa Protection Act repealed a 45 minute standard for inspecting international passengers, minimizing wait times at airports remains an area of concern for U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). Shortly after its creation in March 2003, CBP assumed inspection functions from the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the U.S. Customs Service, and the Department of Agriculture. The new agency's priority missions are to prevent terrorism and to facilitate travel and trade. To assess CBP's efforts to minimize wait times for international air passengers while ensuring security, this report answers the following questions: (1) What are the wait times at the 20 U.S. international airports that receive most of the international traffic and what factors affect wait times? (2) What steps have airports and airlines taken to minimize passenger wait times? (3) How has CBP managed staffing to minimize wait times across airports?
section_title: What GAO Found
paragraphs: The amount of time passengers from international locations have to wait before completing CBP inspections to enter the United States varies within and across airports. On average, CBP processed passengers within 45 minutes during the 2-month period for which data were available, although some flights had significantly longer wait times. Based on our observations and analysis as well as our discussions with airport and CBP officials, we determined that the primary factors affecting wait time are passenger volume, the number of inspection stations available at an airport, and the number of CBP officers available to conduct inspections. These factors, in different combinations at each airport, affect passenger wait times. Three of the five international airports we visited had built new or expanded federal inspection facilities to accommodate future growth in passenger volume and minimize wait times for internationally arriving passengers. Additionally, some airports assigned staff to assist passengers in preparing documentation to minimize wait times. Airline officials we spoke to acknowledged that large volumes of arriving passengers may increase wait times, but said that, to accommodate market demand, airlines do not spread flight arrivals throughout the day. CBP, in its efforts to minimize passenger wait times at airports, has taken steps to increase the efficient use of existing staff at airports. For example, CBP is cross-training its officers so that they can conduct different types of inspections. CBP is also developing a staffing model to allocate staff among its ports. However, the new model fails to address weaknesses identified in assessments of staffing models used previously by Customs and INS, such as not including wait times as a performance measure. CBP also has not developed milestones for completing its staffing model and cross-training program at all ports. Until these weaknesses are addressed, CBP will be hampered in forming a basis for management decision-making concerning staff allocation and staff needs and providing budget justifications.

section_title: Letter
paragraphs: Every person entering the United States must be inspected to ensure he or  she is entering the country lawfully, and in fiscal year 2004, the federal  government spent over $1 billion inspecting air travelers. That year,  approximately 78 million passengers wishing to enter the United States  were inspected at 285 international airports. About 75 percent of these  passengers, or about 59 million, were inspected at 20 of these airports.  Since September 11, 2001, the federal government has emphasized the  need to thoroughly inspect all international passengers so that terrorists  do not enter the country. U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is  charged with inspecting these international passengers to prevent  terrorists and terrorists weapons from entering the country while fulfilling  its mission to foster the nation’s economic security through facilitation of  lawful international trade and travel. One way CBP fosters travel is by  processing international passengers through airport inspections in a timely  manner. If the inspections process impedes the flow of individuals through  the airport, then commerce and tourism could be adversely affected.
The amount of time international passengers wait in line to complete  airport inspection was an area of concern for the former Immigration and  Naturalization Service (INS) and U.S. Customs Service (Customs). Shortly  after its creation in March 2003 through the combination of the inspections  functions from INS, U.S. Department of Agriculture (Agriculture), and  Customs, CBP began developing a new staff allocation model to help  ensure that inspections facilities, such as those at airports, are adequately  staffed to inspect international passengers.
To assess CBP’s efforts to minimize wait times for international air  passengers while ensuring security, we answered the following questions:  1) What are the wait times at the 20 U.S. international airports that receive  most of the international traffic and what factors affect wait times? 2)  What steps have airports and airlines taken to minimize passenger wait  times? 3) How has CBP managed staffing to minimize wait times across  airports?
To determine wait times for international air passengers, we analyzed CBP  data on the wait times at the 20 U.S. airports that receive most of the  international traffic. Because the reliability of CBP wait time data is  significant to the findings of this review, we evaluated the agency’s  internal controls and determined that the required data elements are  sufficiently reliable for the purpose of this review. To determine the  factors affecting wait times, we analyzed and observed the inspections  process and interviewed CBP officials responsible for port management  and certain airport and airline officials involved with international  passenger processing. To determine the steps airports and airlines have  taken to speed passenger processing, we judgmentally selected and visited  five international airports based on their unique characteristics and  geographic dispersion. We interviewed airport and airline officials who  were involved in international-passenger processing and observed the  inspection facilities at the five airports we visited to compare capacities  and constraints to passenger processing. To assess how CBP has managed  staffing to minimize wait times across airports, we interviewed CBP  officials at headquarters and from the five selected airports we visited. We  also reviewed documentation on CBP’s activities for allocating staff to  ports and spoke with agency officials responsible for planning and  implementing a staffing model to be used to help manage staff. We  reviewed our prior work and that of the Department of Justice Inspector  General on previous models used by Customs and INS.
We performed our work from October 2004 to June 2005 in accordance  with generally accepted government auditing standards.
subsections: section_title: Background
paragraphs: CBP has two priority missions: (1) detecting and preventing terrorists and  terrorist weapons from entering the United States, and (2) facilitating the  orderly and efficient flow of legitimate trade and travel. CBP’s supporting  missions include interdicting illegal drugs and other contraband;  apprehending individuals who are attempting to enter the United States  illegally; inspecting inbound and outbound people, vehicles, and cargo;  enforcing all laws of the United States at the border; protecting U.S.  agricultural and economic interests from harmful pests and diseases;  regulating and facilitating international trade; collecting import duties; and  enforcing U.S. trade laws.
There are 317 official ports of entry into the United States. Each port can  be composed of one or more individual facilities, such as airports,  seaports, or land ports where CBP officers process arriving passengers.  The port of Buffalo, New York, for example, has airport, seaport, and land  port inspection facilities while the Port of Detroit has only the facility at  the Detroit International Airport. CBP headquarters allocates staff to  ports. A Director of Field Operations (DFO) is responsible for port  activities within a geographic area and serves as a liaison between port  management and headquarters. Within ports with multiple port facilities  (that may be spread across a wide area), port directors decide whether  officers are assigned to airport, sea port or land port facilities and  individual facility managers are responsible for overseeing day-to-day  operations. Port directors are also responsible for ensuring that officers  are appropriately cross-trained to support the agency’s mission and to  allow for flexibility in assigning officers to various inspections functions  and locations within a port. Figure 1 shows the Port of  Houston/Galveston’s multiple sea ports and one airport.
At inspection facilities within airports, CBP officers inspect all  international passengers wishing to enter the United States mainly to  determine their admissibility into the country. Figure 2 shows inspection  stations within the inspection facility at Dallas-Fort Worth International  Airport in Dallas, Texas.
After entering the inspection area, U.S. citizens (or permanent residents)  and foreign nationals are directed to two different lines. Foreign national  inspections are more complex than U.S. citizen inspections because the  inspecting officer has to be familiar with different nations’ passports and  visas and be able to identify fraudulent versions of these documents. In  addition, foreign nationals must present the I-94 Form. During this  process, the officer asks the foreign national passenger questions, such as  his or her residence abroad and while in the United States, and intended  length of stay. Generally, CBP takes longer to inspect foreign nationals  than U.S. citizens or permanent residents.
In addition to questioning the passenger and examining documentation,  the officer observes the passenger’s behavior as part of his or her  assessment of the passenger’s potential involvement in terrorism, criminal  activities, or violation of immigration status. The officer also checks  records in a variety of databases as well as any relevant and available  intelligence information to identify high-risk passengers. If the CBP  officer conducting the primary inspection decides that a passenger  requires further scrutiny, then that passenger is referred to another CBP  officer who conducts a more in-depth secondary inspection. Secondary  inspection can involve additional interviews, document reviews, database  queries, communication with other law enforcement agencies,  observational techniques, and heightened physical inspections.
After primary or secondary inspection, passengers may be subject to  baggage inspection if they have items to declare, such as certain food  items or currency or if a CBP officer suspects that they may be involved in  illegal activity. Otherwise, if the inspecting officer determines passengers  have nothing to declare and do not pose a risk, passengers are allowed to  pick up their baggage and leave the inspection facility through the exit  control area, where a CBP officer ensures that all passengers have  undergone all necessary examinations. In any inspection, if the officer  determines that certain passengers pose some risk, are engaged in illegal  activity, or are otherwise trying to enter the country unlawfully, they may  be returned to their originating country or detained for further legal  proceedings.
CBP calculates average daily wait times for an airport based on an average  of the wait times of all flights that arrive on that day.  Because it is an  average, this calculation does not represent the wait times for each  individual flight.  In addition, the wait time recorded for an individual  flight does not represent the amount of time that each individual  passenger must wait for primary inspection. CBP calculates passenger  wait time for individual flights as the time elapsed from the arrival of the  first passenger on a flight into the inspection facility to the completion of  primary inspection for 98 percent of the passengers on the flight. For  example, on a flight that CBP records as having a wait time of 45 minutes,  the first passenger to enter the inspection facility may be able to pass  through the primary inspection area in less than 10 minutes, while the last  2 percent of passengers may wait more than an hour, because they arrived  later to the inspection facility or were mixed in line with other flights.  Figure 3 illustrates the steps arriving passengers take after they deplane  until they exit the federal inspection facility and highlights the  components of this process that CBP measures as passenger wait times.
As illustrated in the figure, the wait time CBP calculates for primary  passenger inspection is divided into two components: (1) the time spent  waiting in line at the inspection facility and (2) the length of time of the  primary inspection. This measurement is focused on primary inspection  and does not include the time for passengers to deplane and walk to the  inspection area before the primary inspection and also does not include  the time needed for passengers to retrieve baggage and exit the inspection  facility after the primary inspection. In addition, this measurement does  not take into account time passengers may have to spend in secondary  inspection.
Prior to September 11, Congress had imposed wait time standards on the  INS for processing international passengers. Congress enacted legislation  in 1990 requiring INS to process incoming international passengers within  45 minutes. Although the legislation was not specific as to how INS  should measure the 45 minutes, INS originally interpreted this requirement  to include time spent in line in the inspections facility and the time for  primary inspection—-the two components measured by CBP. The  Enhanced Border Security and Visa Protection Act of 2002 repealed the 45- minute standard as a requirement for processing international  passengers. It added a provision requiring that staffing levels estimated  by CBP in workforce staffing models be based on a goal of providing  immigration services within 45 minutes.
section_title: International Passengers’ Wait Times Vary by Airport and Are Affected by Three Primary Factors
paragraphs: The amount of time passengers from international locations have to wait  before completing CBP inspections to enter the United States varies within  individual airports and across the 20 airports at which CBP records wait  times. Although wait times vary across airports, on average, CBP  processed passengers within 45 minutes during the 2-month period for  which data were available. Nonetheless, within a single airport, CBP has  recorded wait times for individual flights as long as 5 hours for passengers  to complete primary airport inspections and 15 of the 20 airports had one  percent or more of their international flights exceed 60 minutes for  processing international passengers through primary inspection. Based on  our observations and analysis of wait time data, as well as our discussions  with airport and airline officials, we concluded that the primary factors  affecting wait time are passenger volume, the number of inspection  stations available at an airport, and the number of CBP officers available  to conduct inspections. However, none of the three factors, in isolation,  had a decisive effect on passenger wait times.
subsections: section_title: Wait Times at Airports Vary but Generally Averaged 40 Minutes or Less in 2005
paragraphs: In January 2005, CBP began using its current methodology for recording  average daily wait times for international arriving flights at 20 of the 285  airports that receive international air traffic. This calculation is an average  of the wait times of all flights that come in that day. Because it is an  average, this calculation does not represent the wait time for each  individual flight. In addition, the wait time recorded for an individual flight  does not represent the amount of time that each individual passenger must  wait for primary inspection. For example, on a flight that CBP records as  having a wait time of 45 minutes, the first passenger to enter the  inspection facility may be able to pass through the primary inspection area  in less than 10 minutes while the last 2 percent of passengers may wait  more than an hour because they arrived later to the inspection facility or  were mixed in line with other flights. Figure 4 illustrates average daily wait  times at 20 international airports based on the average time required for  the 98th percentile passenger to complete primary inspection at each  airport (this applies to figures 4 through 8) and shows that average wait  times at 19 of the 20 airports for which CBP maintained data were 40  minutes or less.  Airline officials we spoke to cautioned that this data on  wait times was not recorded during the peak June through September time  periods.  The officials stated that wait times recorded during the summer  months may be significantly higher than those recorded during off-peak  periods.
Generally, the longer of the two components of wait time calculated by  CBP is the time spent by passengers waiting in line to meet with a CBP  officer. According to CBP officials and our own observations, the time  spent by the passenger in the primary inspection station communicating  directly with the CBP officer is rarely more than 5 minutes, with  inspections for U.S. citizens lasting approximately 1 to 2 minutes and for  foreign nationals from 3 to 5 minutes. CBP officials told us that if the  officer conducting the primary inspection thinks it is taking an  unreasonable amount of time given the nature of the inspection and the  capacity of the secondary inspection area, he or she will refer the  passenger to secondary inspection to allow for a more thorough  examination of the passenger without unnecessarily holding up other  travelers.
While the Enhanced Border Security and Visa Protection Act removed the  45 minute standard as a requirement for processing international  passengers through inspection, it added a provision specifying that staffing  levels estimated by CBP in workforce models be based upon the goal of  providing immigrations services within 45minutes. As shown in the figure  above, only Miami International Airport has an average wait time of over  45 minutes. However, Miami and other airports do sometimes exceed 60  minutes for processing international passengers through primary  inspection and CBP maintains data on these flights. Figure 5 illustrates the  percentage of flights that exceed 60 minutes for processing international  passengers at 20 airports where CBP records wait times.
As figure 5 shows, at one airport, Miami, more than 20 percent of flights  exceeded 60 minutes to process passengers through primary inspection  while less than one percent of flights arriving at other airports, such as  Baltimore-Washington International Airport, Minneapolis-St. Paul  International Airport, Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport, and Seattle-Tacoma  International Airport exceeded 60 minutes during that time frame.
section_title: Passenger Volume, Number of Inspection Stations, and CBP Staff Levels Are the Primary Factors That Affect Wait Times at Airports
paragraphs: Based on our analysis and observations, along with a general consensus  among CBP, airport, and airline officials, we determined that the primary  factors affecting wait time are passenger volume, the number of inspection  stations available at an airport, and the number of CBP officers available  to conduct inspections. Wait times can also be affected by other factors  such as the use of information technology. However, none of these three  factors, in isolation, directly impacts passenger wait times across airports  due to the variability of numerous other factors that influence wait time at  airports, such as passengers’ countries of origin and airport configuration.
Passenger volume is a primary factor that affects wait time for passengers  at airports because large volumes of passengers can lead to more crowded  inspection facilities and longer lines. Passenger volume can vary by the  time of day, day of the week, or time of year. For example, according to  airline officials, international passengers tend to travel early or late in the  day to accommodate work schedules. Also they said international travel  tends to be higher on Monday and Friday than other days of the week,  which concentrates passenger volume at certain times of day and days of  the week. Airline officials also told us that people tend to travel more  during the summer and over holidays which can lead to more crowded  inspection facilities and increased wait times during the vacation season.  An airport official said flights that exceed 60 minutes for processing  generally arrive during these peak passenger volume periods. Figure 6  illustrates average wait times at airports arranged from lowest to highest  passenger volume.
Although passenger volume is a factor in wait times, it does not directly  correlate with wait times. For example, Dallas-Fort Worth and Newark  airports had about the same average daily wait times while Newark had  almost twice the passenger volume. Other factors, such as the number of  inspection stations or CBP officers on duty, also affect wait times.  According to CBP and airline officials, the number of passengers who can  be processed within a given time period may be limited by the number of  inspection stations available or open at some airports. For example, if an  airport has all of its inspection stations in use by CBP officers, adding  more officers will have little effect on the number of passengers who can  be processed within a given time. Figure 7 lists average wait times at  airports arranged from the lowest to greatest number of inspection  stations.
As shown in the figure, the number of inspection stations also does not  necessarily impact wait times directly. For example, although average wait  times at Boston’s Logan Airport are about the same as for Atlanta’s  Hartsfield-Jackson Airport, Hartsfield-Jackson Airport has about five times  the number of inspection stations as Logan Airport.
The number of CBP staff available to perform primary inspections is also a  primary factor that affects wait times at airports. According to CBP  officials, the agency strives to place sufficient numbers of officers to fulfill  its missions of preventing terrorism and facilitating trade and travel, and  part of facilitating trade and travel involves minimizing wait times. Figure  8 illustrates average wait times arranged from lowest to highest CBP  staffing levels at 20 airports where CBP records wait time data.
As figures 7, 8, and 9 illustrate, no single factor necessarily has a direct  impact on passenger wait times across airports; however, varying  combinations of the factors within an individual airport may have an  effect. For example, CBP and airline officials in Houston stated that the  increase in the number of inspection stations at George Bush  Intercontinental Airport, in combination with the addition of new CBP  officers has reduced passenger wait times.
Information technology systems used during the inspection process to  help CBP officers determine admissibility can potentially affect passenger  wait times. These systems can occasionally slow down passenger  processing when one or more systems become unavailable for any length  of time. Because CBP has procedures in place to continue inspections  while the system is brought back online, officials said that this is not a  major factor affecting wait times. The officials added that system  downtime did not occur frequently or for extended periods. The main  system used by CBP officers to process all passengers is the Interagency  Border Inspection System, which is designed to facilitate and more  effectively control entry of persons into the United States by providing  information on passengers’ identities through querying a variety of  databases. The Interagency Border Inspection System assists CBP officers  in passenger processing and records the results of secondary inspections.  The U.S. Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology (US VISIT)  program is another system used by CBP to help the officer verify  passenger identity. Although wait time data kept by CBP does not capture  the period prior to the introduction of the US VISIT program, our analysis  of available data and discussions with CBP and airline officials indicate  that the program has not significantly increased wait times since the  procedures associated with the system are generally done concurrently  with the CBP officers’ other inspection activities.
section_title: Some Airports and Airlines Expanded Facility Capacity to Minimize Wait Times but Have Not Evenly Distributed Passenger Volume Due to Market Demand
paragraphs: Some airports and airlines took steps to facilitate future increases in  passenger volume and minimize passenger wait times. Specifically, three  of the five international airports we visited had built new or expanded  federal inspection facilities to accommodate future growth in passenger  volume and minimize wait times for internationally arriving passengers.  Additionally, three of these airports assigned staff to assist passengers in  preparing documentation to minimize wait times. Airline officials we  spoke to acknowledged that large volumes of arriving passengers may  increase wait times, but said that, to accommodate market demand,  airlines do not spread flight arrivals evenly throughout the day.
subsections: section_title: Some Airports and Airlines Invested in Upgrades to Increase Capacity and Took Additional Steps to Reduce Passenger Wait Times
paragraphs: According to airport and CBP officials, facility upgrades that increase the  number of inspection stations help to minimize passenger wait times by  allowing for the more rapid and efficient processing of passengers through  inspection facilities. We visited three airports where airports facilities had  been upgraded to increase the number of inspection stations and improve  configuration of the inspection facility. For example, in 2004 a total of 12  new CBP inspection stations were constructed at Washington Dulles  Airport. Airport and airline officials there said that increasing the number  of stations has helped reduce wait times because passengers can now pass  through the facility more easily. However, the benefit of adding inspection  stations has been limited because, as of June 2003, CBP had not increased  staffing levels. However we were not able to verify this because of limited  data availability. According to airline officials, to fully maximize the  benefit of new or expanded inspections facilities, the number of  inspections personnel would need to be increased so that new inspection  stations could be staffed.
Construction of new terminals and inspection facilities has also taken  place at the George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston. In Houston,  the airport authority financed the construction of a new inspection facility,  which opened in January 2005 and increased the number of inspection  stations from 34 to 80. Airport, airline, and CBP officials agreed that the  new facility, in combination with an increase in officer staffing levels, has  reduced wait times at the airport. They stated that this is because the new  inspection facility can more easily accommodate the increased passenger  volume at the airport and the larger number of CBP officers allows more  inspection stations to be used to process international passengers during  peak periods. The new inspection facility at Dallas-Fort Worth Airport is  scheduled for completion in July 2005 and will increase the number of  inspection stations from 30 to 60. Airport officials stated that they expect  that the new facility will help to minimize wait times because it will  consolidate inspections activities in one area, whereas current facilities  divide inspection activities among three separate terminals. Figures 9 and  10 compare the old and new inspection facilities at George Bush  Intercontinental Airport in Houston, Texas.
Houston’s new facility addresses one of the three factors that could  facilitate faster processing of international passengers by increasing the  number of inspection stations. The overall construction of the new facility  shows a more expansive configuration than the old facility. According to  airline and CBP officials, the new facility can accommodate a larger  number of passengers.
According to airport and airline officials, the new inspection facilities at  three of the five airports we visited were constructed to increase capacity  to accommodate current and projected passenger volume and planning for  them began years in advance and, in the case of federal inspection  facilities, were approved by CBP or its legacy agencies in advance. CBP is  responsible for reviewing and approving design proposals for inspections  facilities to ensure that they meet the agency’s security requirements. In  each case, the airports or airlines conducted studies estimating future  passenger volume to justify the cost of constructing these facilities. For  example, the total cost of the new facility in Houston was approximately  $440 million, according to airport officials. Airport and airline officials said  that these projects were planned, funded, and completed with the  expectation that CBP would increase staff for the new facilities as  passenger volume increased. However, CBP officials stated that the  agency is not legally or contractually required to allocate new staff when  inspection facilities are constructed or expanded and the agency is to  make no commitment implicitly or explicitly regarding future staffing  levels in approving new inspection facility design proposals.
Airports and airlines also have taken other steps to minimize passenger  wait times. For example, at four of the five airports we visited, airport and  airline officials stationed personnel in the inspection facility area to assist  passengers in filling out required forms such as the I-94 Forms as they wait  in line for primary inspection. According to airline officials, this assistance  helps to reduce delays caused when passengers are turned away from the  primary inspections stations due to incompletely or incorrectly filled out  forms. Airport officials at one airport placed Internet terminals in the  inspection area to allow passengers to search for address information  required for the I-94 form.
section_title: Airport and Airline Officials Cite Market Demand as a Limiting Factor in Their Ability to Spread Out Flight Schedules to Minimize Wait Times
paragraphs: CBP and airline officials we spoke with said that scheduling large numbers  of flights within a short time period, known as “peaking,” could cause  longer passenger wait times. According to airport and airline officials, up  to half of an airport’s daily volume may arrive within a few hours. For  example, as figure 10 shows, over half of the daily international passenger  volume at Atlanta Hartsfield Airport arrives between 1:00 p.m. and 5:00  p.m.
Airline officials said that market demand and international travel patterns  largely determine flight schedules, as follows. Passengers generally leave  their city of origin early in the morning or later in the evening in order to  work a full day at their destination. To deal with this market demand for  flights, airlines schedule their flights in clusters referred to as “banks” that  follow these business dynamics. Consequently, they said they have little  flexibility to spread out flight schedules and still meet passenger demand  for travel times. For example, flights leaving western Europe in the  morning generally arrive at eastern U.S. airports between 11 a.m. and 4  p.m. In addition, according to airport officials, passengers prefer arriving  during this time frame because it allows them to make connecting flights  to other U.S. destinations.
section_title: CBP Has Improved Staffing Management through Increased Flexibilities, but Plans for a Systematic Staffing Model Do Not Address Identified Weaknesses
paragraphs: CBP has taken steps to increase management flexibility in staffing officers  to various inspections functions and to improve the allocation of existing  staff in an effort to minimize international passenger wait times and  ensure that staff are being used as efficiently as possible. For example, at  some airports, facility managers have arranged staff work schedules and  used overtime to maximize the number of staff conducting inspections  during peak periods. CBP’s One Face at the Border training program is  designed to train staff to perform different inspection functions to increase  staffing flexibility, but CBP has not established milestones for completing  the training. CBP is also developing a national staffing model to help in  allocating staff across ports and airports nationwide; however, the model  does not address weaknesses in Customs and INS models identified in our  and the Department of Justice Inspector General’s previous audit work.  Agency officials told us that the model was to be completed by April of  2005. However, as of June 2005, it had not been finished and CBP officials  had not established milestones for completing and implementing the  model.
subsections: section_title: Local CBP Management Is Attempting to Minimize Wait Times through Flexible Staffing but Lacks Milestones for Completing Training
paragraphs: CBP has taken advantage of existing staffing flexibility to help minimize  passenger wait times. For example, CBP facility managers told us that they  plan their officer work shifts so that the most officers available are  working during peak hours. When the number of officers available to be  assigned during peak time shifts is inadequate for passenger processing,  the port director or CBP airport manager may use overtime by asking  officers to come in early or stay late. Overtime is the most common tool  management uses to address increases in passenger volume.
CBP has not, however, established targets or milestones—such as having a  certain percentage of staff cross-trained by a set date—for port directors  to complete its One Face at the Border program to allow for greater  flexibility in assigning officers to various functions and locations within  airports. In July 2003, CBP began a cross-training effort, One Face at the  Border, to integrate the former inspections workforces of Customs, INS,  and Agriculture. The intent of this effort was to train legacy Customs  inspectors to perform “historical” INS and agricultural inspection activities  (such as processing passengers at primary inspection and screening for  restricted food items) and for legacy INS inspectors to perform “historical”  Customs and agricultural inspection activities (e.g., inspecting passenger  baggage) in order to create a unified inspection force and a single primary  processing point at ports of entry. The officials told us that this effort  would allow officers to perform different inspection functions within  airports as well as across different facilities. In certain instances where  facilities are located geographically close to one another, inspections  officers may be transferred to different facilities within a port to  accommodate workload changes. For example, CBP officials at the port of  Baltimore told us that officers are stationed at the airport during peak  volume periods to inspect air passengers and may be moved to the seaport  at other times. Managers may also move cross-trained officers among the  various inspection functions performed within a specific port facility. For  example, two CBP port directors told us that during peak volume periods,  they may move officers from baggage or secondary inspection to primary  inspection stations, although some airport and airline officials said this  may actually increase wait time for passengers picking up baggage or  passing through exit control.
As of June 2005, CBP had developed and delivered some of the training  materials for the One Face at the Border program to all ports and expects  to develop and deliver all remaining training materials by the end of 2005.  CBP officials said this program is essential for increasing staff flexibility  so that staff can conduct different types of inspections within airports.   However, CBP officials said it could take a number of years for officers  nationwide to complete all required training. While CBP monitors the  progress of each port in completing its required training, it has not  established milestones for when ports should complete the training  program or goals for having some percentage of staff complete the  training. Milestones for completing this training program would help CBP  to assess progress in implementing the program and determine when  managers would be able to allocate officers within their port to areas of  greatest need. They would also provide a basis to hold responsible  officials accountable for implementing the training program. Without  milestones for measuring the implementation status of its cross-training  program, CBP has no assurance that port directors have the flexibility  needed to allocate officers within and among facilities as efficiently as  possible.
section_title: CBP Management Does Not Allocate Staff to Ports Systematically
paragraphs: CBP does not systematically assess the number of staff required to  accomplish its mission at ports or airports nationwide or assure that  officers are allocated to airports with greatest need. CBP’s current  approach to allocating officers does not determine the optimal use of CBP  inspection staff across all ports. Rather, it assumes the overall allocations  are static, and relies on port directors to determine the number of staff  necessary to accomplish CBP’s mission at airports and other port facilities  within their purview.
In instances where port directors identify a need for additional staff, for  example due to a projected increase in international passenger volume,  they are to forward staffing requests to the Director of Field Operations  (DFO), who reviews the requests and determines whether they should be  forwarded to headquarters for review. CBP human resources officials told  us they review these requests and determine whether funds are available  to address needs through allocation of additional staff. CBP Headquarters,  however, has not provided formal, agencywide guidance to the port  directors or DFOs on what factors should be considered to assess staffing  needs or where staff should be allocated within a port. Without uniform  agency guidance, everyone involved in the process from port directors to  human resource officials must use their own judgment to determine  staffing needs, and CBP cannot be assured that an individual port’s staff  needs are being evaluated consistently or that staff are allocated to the  ports with greatest needs nationwide.
section_title: CBP Is Developing a Systematic Staffing Model, but Its Plans Do Not Address Identified Weaknesses
paragraphs: To provide a more systematic basis for allocating staff, CBP in October  2003 began developing a staffing model based on agencywide criteria to  help allocate staff to its ports. The intent of CBP’s staffing model is to  reduce the degree of subjectivity in the process of determining staffing  needs. It will assist in allocating existing staff levels across ports by using  a uniform set of approximately 30 different criteria, such as passenger and  trade volume, that are weighted according to their importance to CBP’s  mission. After assessing these criteria, the model is to determine how to  allocate the existing officer workforce among ports.
CBP officials developing the model said they plan to incorporate elements  of two previous staffing models used by Customs and INS. However, as  shown in table 1, the new model fails to address three weaknesses  identified in our assessments of earlier models used by the legacy agencies  upon which CBP’s model is based. Specifically, the model 1) will not take  passenger wait times into account as a performance measure to help CBP  assess whether staff levels are sufficient to address passenger volume, 2)  will not regularly take into consideration field input in determining  appropriate staffing levels, and 3) will not be used to assess optimal levels  of staff to ensure security while facilitating travel at individual ports and  port facilities, including airports. CBP officials told us that because 1) they  do not want to risk security in order to adhere to a time limit, 2) field  requests for staffing changes should be assessed by the DFO on an as- needed basis, and 3) it is unlikely that additional inspection personnel will  be forthcoming in the current budget climate, they have not considered  addressing these factors in their staffing model. Table 1 summarizes these  reported weaknesses and CBP’s views regarding the need to address them.
The Enhanced Border Security and Visa Entry Reform Act of 2002  repealed the 45-minute standard for processing international air  passengers through inspection that was established for INS. However, it  added a provision requiring CBP to base staffing level estimates from its  workforce model on the goal of providing immigration services within 45  minutes. CBP officials said that minimizing wait times is not a high priority  because officials do not want to risk sacrificing security in order to adhere  to a time limit. However, when a flight exceeds 60 minutes for processing  passengers through primary inspection, CBP requires that port directors  provide an explanation for why this occurred and take corrective actions.  Including a goal of providing inspection services within 45 minutes for  international air passengers in its staffing model would assist CBP in  determining the number of officers required to fulfill its missions of  facilitating trade and travel while at the same time ensuring security and  help identify airports with the greatest disparity between staffing  requirements and current allocation levels.
Our prior work has shown that involving staff in all phases of workforce  planning can help improve its quality because staff are directly involved  with daily operations. Plans for CBP’s model rely on input from the ports  and port facilities, including airports, regarding passenger and trade  volume; passenger and trade complexity variables, such as number and  value of cargo seizures; number of airport terminals; mix of passengers;  arrests; and level of on-board staff. However, CBP’s efforts to solicit  information from field officials do not occur formally on a regular basis or  include guidance to port directors and DFOs on how to assess staff levels,  and as a result, CBP does not receive timely and consistent input on  critical staffing needs to help them adjust staff levels to ensure that staff  are used as efficiently as possible. CBP officials said that they do not have  definite plans to ask for staff needs assessments on a regular basis. For  example, in November 2004 shortly after we initiated our review, CBP  headquarters issued its first formal letter since the agency’s creation in  March 2003, soliciting DFOs for their input on critical staffing needs. The  solicitation did not include guidance or criteria to DFOs or port directors  on how to assess their staff levels to help ensure that headquarters’  staffing decisions are based on consistent data from all ports.  Furthermore, the request was not consistently communicated to all CBP  locations; facilities managers at two of the five airports we visited after the  solicitation was sent out said that they were unaware of the request for  information. CBP officials told us that it is not headquarters’ responsibility  to evaluate staffing requests from individual ports. Rather, it is the  responsibility of the DFOs to evaluate staffing needs at ports on an  ongoing basis. Nonetheless, regular, formal input from facility and port  management would help CBP headquarters ensure that staff are used as  efficiently as possible by aligning staffing decisions with the needs and  realities of CBP ports nationwide.
CBP’s plans for the staffing model indicate it will be used to allocate  existing staff across ports, for example it will help reallocate positions  made available through attrition, but it will not determine whether current  staff levels are appropriate or determine an optimal number of staff  needed at individual ports or airports. CBP officials stated they have not  assessed overall staffing needs across ports or airports and do not plan to  do so with the proposed model because they do not expect to receive any  additional resources given the current budget climate. However, according  to our primary human capital principles, agencies should identify gaps in  their workforce to provide a basis for proper staffing to meet program  goals. These workforce gap analyses can help justify budget and staffing  requests by connecting program goals and strategies with the budget and  staff resources needed to accomplish them. The model, when it is  completed, will not identify such gaps according to CBP officials because  absent additional resources, the only way to address these gaps would be  to relocate officers. The officials said this is not a viable solution because  of the costs associated with relocating CBP officers. According to CBP,  the cost of moving a single CBP officer from one port to another is $60,400  on average. Determining an optimal number of officers for airports will  help CBP link its budget requests to mission priorities, allowing the agency  to determine which facilities have the greatest disparity between staffing  requirements and current allocation levels and help ensure the most  efficient allocation of new staff.
CBP officials told us that they set an original deadline of April 2005 for  completing the proposed staffing model. As of June 2005, CBP had not  finalized its model and did not have revised milestones or a schedule to  measure their progress for completing and implementing the model. Until  CBP finalizes its staffing model and establishes a schedule for completing  and implementing its model, it is uncertain when the model will be  available to provide a regular and consistent method for efficiently  allocating staff.
section_title: Conclusions
paragraphs: As it performs its official missions, CBP maintains two overarching and  sometimes conflicting goals: increasing security while facilitating  legitimate trade and travel. To help achieve these goals, CBP has taken  steps to increase staffing flexibility and improve the allocation of staff to  help ensure that wait times are minimized and that existing levels of staff  are being used as efficiently as possible. To that end, CBP initiated its One  Face at the Border program to cross-train officers from its legacy agencies  with the intention of providing more flexibility in its placement of staff.  However, CBP’s lack of milestones for ports to complete this cross- training makes it difficult for the agency to determine when training will  be completed within individual ports and hold port directors accountable  for having their staff complete training. Furthermore, the lack of  milestones affects port directors’ and facility managers’ ability to allocate  officers within airports to different functions. We recognize that ports  experience different traffic flow patterns and demands, and that taking  staff offline to train them may require overtime or may increase passenger  wait times. Nevertheless with established milestones, CBP would be better  able to measure the progress of its cross-training program across ports  and maximize port staffing flexibility.
CBP is also developing a staffing model to assist in determining officer  allocation levels. In doing so, CBP has the opportunity to take a proactive  approach to managing its human capital and address historical  weaknesses of its legacy agencies’ systems for allocating personnel.  Although CBP’s staffing model is a step in the right direction, we identified  certain weaknesses that can affect CBP’s ability to place its staff to best  advantage in addressing passenger wait times. While most airports were  able to process passengers within 45 minutes on average during the period  of time we examined, wait times for individual flights still exceeded 60  minutes five percent or more of the time at four of the 20 airports where  CBP records wait time data. CBP’s exclusion of wait time standards for  inspecting international air passengers in its planned model limits its  ability to manage staff to accomplish the second part of its dual mission  fostering international trade and travel. Furthermore, CBP’s lack of regular  and formal input from airports and other port facilities limits the agency’s  ability to ensure that its staffing decisions align with the needs and  realities of its ports nationwide. Using the planned model to determine the  allocation of existing staff without also determining an optimal number of  staff for airports limits the agency’s knowledge of ports that have the  greatest gaps between optimal and existing staff levels. Finally, CBP has  not fully addressed what factors will be included in its model currently  under development or set milestones for completing and implementing the  model. By not addressing these weaknesses, CBP is bypassing an  opportunity to develop information that would further enhance  management decision-making concerning staff allocation and staff needs  and providing budget justifications.
section_title: Recommendations
paragraphs: To assist CBP in its efforts to develop a staffing model that will help  provide a basis for budget justifications and management decision-making  and to establish goals and performance measures to assess its progress in  completing its staffing model and its cross-training program, we  recommend that the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security  direct the Commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, to take  the following five actions    provide ports with targets and milestones for having staff cross-trained  to measure the progress of its One Face at the Border program while  being sensitive to work demands in setting training schedules;  incorporate wait time performance measures in the staffing model  currently under development as required by the Enhanced Border  Security and Visa Protection Act of 2002;    use the staffing model under development to determine the optimal  number of staff at each airport nationwide;    systematically solicit input from the field on staffing needs and include  uniform, agencywide guidance on how they should assess their needs  and environment; and    set out milestones for completing CBP’s planned staffing model.
section_title: DHS’s Comments and Our Evaluation
paragraphs: DHS provided written comments on a draft of this report, and these  comments are reprinted in appendix II.  DHS concurred with three of our  recommendations: to use CBP’s staffing model to determine the optimal  number of staff at each airport nationwide, to systematically solicit input  from the field on CBP staffing needs, and to set milestones for completing  CBP’s planned staffing model.  DHS said that CBP had efforts underway  and additional plans to implement these recommendations.
DHS partially concurred with our remaining two recommendations.  With  respect to our recommendation to provide ports with targets and  milestones for having staff cross-trained, DHS said that CBP believes it is  not advantageous to implement across-the-board milestones, citing the  need to coordinate training with appropriate work assignments so that the  training can be directly applied.  CBP officials said that it could take a  number of years for officers to complete training nationwide and noted  that they plan to begin computing training requirements through fiscal  year 2007.  We continue to believe it is important to establish milestones  for cross-training CBP staff.  CBP told us that the cross-training program is  essential for increasing staff flexibility and enabling staff to properly  conduct different types of inspections within airports. Having milestones  for individual ports to complete required training would help improve  accountability and planning. Given CBP’s concern about workload  demands and the timing of training, the milestones could be established in  consideration of the training needs and operational environment of each  port. The planning process described by CBP could provide a basis for  establishing these milestones.
With regard to our recommendation that CBP incorporate wait time  performance measures in the staffing model currently under development,  DHS said that CBP will consider (DHS emphasis) incorporating wait times  for future resource allocation. We continue to believe that the wait time  standards should be incorporated into CBP’s planned workforce staffing  model. We note that such action is required by the Enhanced Border  Security and Visa Protection Act of 2002. In addition, incorporating wait  time standards would help CBP measure the extent to which it is  achieving its mission of facilitating trade and travel while ensuring  security.  It would also allow CBP to identify airports with the greatest  disparity between optimal and existing staff allocation levels.
We plan to provide copies of this report to the Secretary of the  Department of Homeland Security, the Commissioner of the U.S. Customs  and Border Protection, and interested congressional committees. We will  make copies available to others upon request. In addition, the report will  be available at no charge on the GAO Web site at http://www.gao.gov.
If you or your staff have any questions concerning this report please  contact me at (202) 512-8777. Key contributors to this report are listed in  appendix III.
section_title: Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and Methodology
paragraphs: To assess CBP’s progress in minimizing wait times for international air  passengers while ensuring security, we analyzed (1) the wait times at the  20 U.S. international airports that receive most of the international traffic  and factors affecting wait times; (2) the steps airports and airlines have  taken to minimize passenger wait times; and (3) how CBP has managed  staffing to minimize wait times across airports.
Specifically, to determine the wait times at U.S. airports and factors  affecting wait times, we analyzed CBP wait time data collected between  October 1, 2004 and March 31, 2005. CBP’s calculation of wait time  changed on January 10, 2005, and we determined the difference in wait  times between the time periods of October 1, 2004, through January 9,  2005, and January 10, 2005, through March 31, 2005. We calculated average  wait times and average percent of flights exceeding 60 minutes for 20  major U.S. airports based on CBP’s data. We assessed the reliability of the  passenger volume, wait time, number of inspection stations and inspection  staffing data by (1) reviewing existing information about the data and the  systems that produced them, (2) interviewing agency official  knowledgeable about the data, and (3) comparing what we observed at the  selected airports visited with the data. We determined that the data were  sufficiently reliable for the purposes of this report. For the purpose of  calculating the percentage of flights exceeding 60 minutes for primary  passenger inspection, the data are sufficiently reliable to compare airports  but not sufficiently reliable as a performance measure. We found high  rates at some airports of numerous flights with wait times of 59 or 60  minutes. If the performance standard was changed to 59 or 60 minutes, the  percentage of flights exceeding this threshold would be different from that  reported in Figure 5. The data should be viewed as limited indicators of  overall wait times at airports, because the available data only spanned two  and one half months of wait times and did not include the peak travel  periods of June through September when wait times may be higher. To  determine the factors affecting wait times, we interviewed CBP officials at  both headquarters and at the port level, such as port directors, who are  responsible for overall management of the port, including airports. We  also interviewed selected airport and airline officials who are involved  with international passenger processing and could provide perspective on  what factors affected wait times at U.S. airports. In addition, we  interviewed officials at airport and airline associations who provided us  with international passenger volume statistics and contacts for officials at  the locations we visited.
To determine the steps airports and airlines have taken to minimize  passenger wait times, we visited five international airports based on their  unique characteristics and geographic dispersion. The airports selected  were George Bush Intercontinental Airport, Dallas-Fort Worth  International Airport, Washington Dulles International Airport, Baltimore- Washington International Airport, and Hartsfield Atlanta International  Airport. At these five airports, we interviewed airport and airline officials  who were involved in international passenger processing issues to learn  how they interacted with CBP to help speed passenger processing. We  also reviewed documentation provided to us by officials at three airports  on assessments they had produced on the number of stations and CBP  officers needed at their airports to process passengers within certain time  limits. We observed the inspection facilities at each of the five airports  visited to compare the capacities and constraints to passenger processing  at each. Specifically, we observed facilities’ upgrades where airports had  either built an entirely new facility or added inspection stations to existing  facilities.
To assess how CBP has managed staffing to minimize wait times across  airports, we interviewed CBP officials at headquarters and from the five  selected airports. For example, we interviewed port directors and other  field-level officials to gather perspectives on what options are available to  CBP field managers to manage staff to improve wait times at airports. To  analyze how CBP’s cross-training program affects the agency’s ability to  allocate staff to airports, we spoke with officials responsible for  developing and delivering training curriculums to the various ports and we  examined these curriculums and their delivery schedule. To determine  how CBP currently allocates staff, we spoke with officials in the budget,  human resource and planning offices in CBP’s Office of Field Operations.  We also reviewed and evaluated documentation on CBP’s policies and  procedures for allocating staff to ports. To understand and evaluate CBP’s  staffing model under development, we spoke with agency officials  responsible for planning and implementing the model’s development and  analyzed the criteria associated with the model. We also reviewed our and  the Department of Justice Inspector General’s prior work on previous  models developed for U.S. Customs Service and the Immigration and  Naturalization Service and compared these findings with the new model.
We performed our work from October 2004 to June 2005 in accordance  with generally accepted government auditing standards.
section_title: Appendix II: Comments from the Department of Homeland Security
section_title: Appendix III: GAO Contacts and Staff Acknowledgments
subsections: section_title: GAO Contacts
section_title: Acknowledgments
paragraphs: Leo Barbour, Grace Coleman, Deborah Davis, Nancy Finley, Christopher  Keisling, Jessica Lundberg, Robert Rivas, and Gregory Wilmoth made  significant contributions to this report.