If you have been one of the millions of flyers hit by hours-long TSA wait times, or if you’re one of the thousands of TSA agents working without pay during the partial federal shutdown: I am sorry.
As of March 24, more than 2 million travelers were passing through TSA daily, experiencing up to 6-hour wait times at the busiest airports. More than 480 TSA officers have quit in the 40-days since Department of Homeland Security funding lapsed. Another 3,000 have called out of work. The agents, who make $35,000 per year on average, have now missed two full pay periods.
The situation has been exacerbated by the presence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents at terminals across the U.S. Deployed by the Trump administration as a proposed solution to understaffing, flyers have already reported ICE agents detaining flyers at San Francisco International Airport.
Most major airports are now recommending travelers arrive around 4 hours before their flights to get through the lines with time to spare.
Can I check TSA wait times?
Short answer: Yes. There are multiple sites online that track security wait times, including trackers hosted by major terminals themselves. The Department of Homeland Security has previously encouraged flyers to download the MyTSA app to check security times, for example.
But much like the less-than-reliable amusement park apps that tell you the wait for rides is only 30 minutes (it never is), these websites are not entirely accurate. And, making everything worse, most of the federally-run trackers are no longer being managed or updated while the government is in shutdown. That’s also why third-party trackers, which often pull their data from publicly available APIs, may be similarly inaccurate.
Most major airports like New York’s JFK, have begun to turn off their own wait time trackers in light of inaccuracies and delays. JFK’s homepage even displays an alert:
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“Due to the federal funding lapse, security wait times may be significantly longer than normal. Wait times are subject to rapid change based on passenger volumes and TSA staffing. For these reasons, wait time reporting has been temporarily suspended. Please allow for significantly more time and check with your airline for the current status of your flight.”
With official avenues down, your best bet may just be your fellow flyers.
Reddit users on r/delta and r/airport, for example, are sharing live updates on their waits and posting photos of current lines — subreddits in cities particularly affected by understaffing are actively updating TSA megathreads too, like r/houston and r/atlanta. Others have taken to r/TSA to try to ask for advice directly from security staffers. TikTok is flooded with people vlogging their waits — using these anecdotes as reference may help you more effectively plan.
Can I make my wait shorter?
The standard advice is to purchase TSA PreCheck, a fee-based authorization service that lets flyers skip many steps of the security process and wait in a separate line from the non-payers. There’s also CLEAR, an identity verification service in which flyers can use to skip ID check lines.
Both services are intended to get travelers through airports faster, but users online have reported that even PreCheck lines are snaking through terminals, with a few viral videos showing longer wait times than standard TSA lines. Some overly strained airports have also closed their PreCheck and Clear lines, including Bush Airport in Houston, due to understaffing.
If you’re flying without a RealID — which is now required to travel, at least on paper — and don’t have another form of valid identification, you must pay a fee to the TSA before you enter the security line at the airport. It’s known as the TSA ConfirmID Program, and it requires a more involved security check and pat down than regular TSA. However, at some airports, that check is down outside of general security lines, much like how TSA PreCheck works.
Anecdotally, a visiting friend who flew out of JFK on March 21 told me she got through TSA in about 30 minutes, skipping the lines because she was flagged for a TSA ConfirmID check (she has no passport, and no RealID).
What happens if I miss my flight?
Typically, airlines are not responsible for accommodating flyers who miss their flights because of security delays. But they also know that airports are a complete mess right now.
Allegiant Air said it is temporarily waiving cancellation and change fees for passengers affected by TSA understaffing. For now, Delta has issued a similar waiver for March 24 flyers out of Hartsfield-Jackson airport in Atlanta. United said it would rebook passengers who had flights out of Houston on March 23-24 at no cost and has eliminated “most” ticket change fees, CBS reported.
In an email to the New York Times, a Southwest spokesperson said: “If a customer is unable to make their flight due to T.S.A. wait times, we will rebook them on the next available flight with no additional charge.”
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