The TSA abandoned its Gold+ airport security privatization program and replaced it with a new federal strategy called Horizon 25, a reversal that keeps government screeners at the helm and leaves three airports that signed on to the original plan scrambling to adjust.
TSA Administrator David Cummins replaced the Gold+ initiative with what the agency calls the Horizon 25 Strategy, a framework that retains federal oversight of checkpoint screening across the country. The announcement, made Monday, effectively ended a privatization push that had attracted only three airports nationwide: Tampa International, Charleston International, and Des Moines International.
Tampa was the first to respond. The Florida airport issued a press release the same day confirming it would stick with its existing federal TSA officers. Charleston and Des Moines had said nothing publicly as of Tuesday, and neither airport returned a request for comment from The U.S. Sun.
The Gold+ program was supposed to expand private-sector involvement in airport security screening. Only three commercial airports in the entire country announced intent to adopt its protocols. That thin level of buy-in tells its own story about how the program was received across the industry.
Tampa Airport CEO Michael Stephens framed his airport's decision as the product of careful due diligence, not a snap reaction to the federal reversal:
"We approached Gold+ carefully and deliberately, with a focus on our passengers, employees, airline partners, and long-term operational excellence."
Tampa's full press release said the airport had conducted "a full evaluation" of the private screening partnership program before electing to continue with federal officers. The statement made no mention of dissatisfaction with the Gold+ concept, just a preference for what the airport already had.
Charleston and Des Moines remain silent. Whether those airports had already begun transitioning operations under Gold+ or were still in early planning stages is unclear. The TSA has not disclosed what, if anything, the shift to Horizon 25 means for airports that were mid-process.
The replacement strategy leans on familiar government language. The TSA said Horizon 25 will "drive excellency and resiliency for years to come" by working to "modernize TSA's checkpoints, elevate the traveler experience, and harden multi-modal transportation security."
Buried in that bureaucratic framing is one concrete detail worth watching. The strategy introduces what TSA calls an "evolved Screening Partnership Program." The existing SPP, the long-running arrangement under which private screeners operate at airports with TSA oversight, currently covers 20 commercial airports nationwide. How the "evolved" version differs from the current SPP remains unexplained.
The agency said the new program will support "streamlining the acquisition of new technology, expanding TSA's capabilities to counter the threat of unmanned aircraft systems, and advancing other key priorities." That is a broad mandate with no public specifics attached to it yet.
Cummins has not made any direct public statement explaining why Gold+ failed or why the pivot happened now. The TSA has not released the Horizon 25 document publicly, and no link to the strategy has been made available. Travelers and airport operators are left reading a press summary with no underlying text to examine.
The 20 airports already operating under the existing SPP face their own uncertainty. The TSA has not said whether those airports will be folded into the "evolved" version of the program, left as they are, or asked to renegotiate terms. For airports that built staffing and operations around private screening contracts, the lack of clarity is not academic, it is operational.
And the three airports that raised their hands for Gold+ got a lesson in the risk of signing onto a federal initiative before the ink is dry. Tampa, at least, landed on its feet by announcing its decision the same day. Charleston and Des Moines have not been so quick.
When a federal agency launches a program, attracts only three takers, then scraps it and replaces it with a strategy document full of buzzwords and no public text, taxpayers are right to ask what the exercise cost, and who, exactly, it was for.
