Among the first questions a company asks on any federal solicitation is whether the work is already being done by someone else. It matters. Bidding against an incumbent is a different proposition than bidding on something new, and it tells you who you are replacing.
A bidder asked TSA that question about Gold+ on the first line of the first published set of answers. TSA's response was one sentence.
TSA Gold+ Questions and Answers Set 1, July 10, 2026
What That Sentence Rules Out
There are already private screening companies operating at American airports. Roughly twenty airports run under the Screening Partnership Program, where a contractor employs the screeners and TSA regulates the operation. If Gold+ were a modernization of that arrangement, the target airports would be those airports, and the officers affected would already be contractor employees.
They are not. A separate bidder asked directly how TSA would handle task orders at airports where an existing SPP contract is in place. TSA answered that at this time, there is no plan to modify the current contracts at SPP airports.
So the program is not aimed at the airports that already went private. It is aimed at the ones that did not.
What This Means for You
If you are a federal officer at a federal checkpoint, you are not outside the scope of this program. You are the scope of this program. TSA said so in writing, in response to a bidder who wanted to know whose work was being competed.
What It Does Not Establish
TSA has not named the airports. It has said the program will launch with four, that it has already identified airports which expressed interest, and that participation is voluntary. It has declined to name them, and declined even to identify what size airports they are, until the next phase of the solicitation.
So this does not tell you whether your airport is on the list. What it tells you is which list you are eligible for.
For how Gold+ differs from the private screening models that came before it, see Two Timelines: The Union Case and the Gold+ Program.
Why We Want You to Know
Officers at federal airports have been told for months that privatization is something that happens somewhere else, at airports that chose it, to people who already work for contractors.
The first answer TSA published to the companies bidding on this contract says otherwise. "The potential airports currently have federal staff." Those are TSA's words, not ours.
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