WEST DES MOINES, Iowa — TSA at the Des Moines International Airport wants to make sure it can keep up with what they are calling rising travel demands. 

Jessica Mayle, the regional spokesperson for TSA, said in preparation for that increase the agency is hosting a hiring event to bring on more Transportation Security Officers(TSO). 

Mayle said the agency does not have an exact number of people they want to hire, but they want to hire enough to make sure flyers’ wait times don’t increase. 

The spokesperson said currently the average wait time for a flyer to pass through TSA pre-check in Des Moines is under 10 minutes and the wait for non-pre-check is under 30 minutes.

Mayle said to keep those numbers low, as air travel is expected to increase, now is the time for them to get more TSO prepared.

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She noted one of the ways they are trying to appeal to potential employees in this market is by reminding them, that being a TSO is a federal government job. 

“We are trying to be competitive and what could we offer that a lot of these private employers can’t, and that’s security that comes with a federal job,” Mayle said. “[It] is virtually recession-proof. A lot of people were losing their jobs in the pandemic and that doesn’t happen with TSA or federal government, generally.”

People who come to the hiring event will receive a presentation about the job as well as an opportunity to complete parts of the hiring process.

Starting pay is $18.65