After weeks of chaos in U.S. airports, the Transportation Safety Administration said the first paychecks in weeks were being sent as early as Monday to its workers, giving the beleaguered aviation system a boost of optimism. As a result, wait times at some TSA security bottlenecks, such as the airport checkpoints in Atlanta and Houston, improved significantly Monday morning.
But how long it will take for long security lines to consistently return to normal – and how long federal immigration officers will stay in airports – remains unknown as the busy spring break travel season continues.
The DHS shutdown has resulted in not only travel delays but also warnings of airport closures as TSA workers missing paychecks stopped going to work. Those workers were just recovering financially since last fall’s extended government shutdown.
Wait times still pushed beyond two hours at New York’s LaGuardia Airport Monday morning. Baltimore-Washington International Airport had minimal wait-times Monday morning, but continued to advise travellers to arrive three hours before their scheduled departure (down from four hours in the days before).
President Donald Trump on Friday ordered the Department of Homeland Security to pay TSA officers immediately to ease the lines plaguing airports.
TSA employees had gone without pay since DHS funding lapsed in February. The department’s shutdown reached 44 days on Sunday, eclipsing the record 43-day shutdown last fall that affected all of the federal government.
Multiple airports experienced greater than 40% callout rates, and nearly 500 of the agency’s nearly 50,000 transportation security officers quit during the shutdown.
Trump deployed Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to some airports a week ago to help with security as TSA callouts rose nationwide. How long they stay, White House border czar Tom Homan said, depends on how quickly TSA employees return to work. A TSA statement said the agency “has immediately begun the process of paying its workforce,” with paychecks arriving “as early as Monday.”
The overall absentee rate among TSA officers scheduled to work dipped slightly on Sunday, according to DHS. The highest were concentrated at major airports that have seen consistently elevated absences lately.
Those included BWI, both of Houston’s main airports; Louis Armstrong International Airport in New Orleans; Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport; and John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York.
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