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Will you really need to get to the airport three hours ahead of your flight? Will airport security be open in the terminal you’re flying from? Will your airport even be open?<\/p>\n
Those are questions that few air travelers expected to be asking this year, but answering them has become an unfortunate reality this spring thanks to the partial government shutdown that’s now nearing the end of its seventh week.<\/p>\n
And, increasingly, the effects of the shutdown are being felt by air travelers \u2014 specifically in ballooning security checkpoint wait times that are popping up around the country like a game of whack-a-mole.<\/p>\n
Here’s what flyers should know about traveling in the weeks ahead.<\/p>\n
The issue: The latest government shutdown has frozen funding for the Department of Homeland Security, which includes the Transportation Security Administration. That means TSA screeners are being asked to work without pay.<\/p>\n
In the early days of the shutdown, the TSA’s screening checkpoints largely operated as normal.<\/p>\n
But now, after more than a month without paychecks, call-out rates have soared among screeners \u2014 many of whom say they’ve been forced to take on other jobs to pay their bills. Others have quit altogether \u2014 more than 360 since Jan. 31, the DHS has shared with numerous media outlets.<\/p>\n
That’s on top of call-out rates that have gone as high as 10% of the entire TSA workforce on some days.<\/p>\n
For travelers, the biggest problems have come at airports where call-out rates have spiked on a particular day, leaving the TSA short-staffed and travelers waiting in unusually long lines.<\/p>\n
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