We’ve all experienced the agonizing wait in the TSA line: stomping feet, crying babies, navigating a maze of pillars. But if you’ve been to an airport in the past few days, waiting in the security line may have been worse than usual.
In the case of Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport and Hobby Airport, TSA wait times exceeded an agonizing three hours and in some cases were as long as four and a half hours. traveler Missed your flight, and the TSA agent, they will Average $26 per hourr has been working without pay since the government shutdown for more than a month.
The disaster began because TSA staff were reduced during the government shutdown. This means several security checkpoints are closed, requiring all travelers to pass through only two terminals; normally nine security checkpoints is open. Even the TSA Pre-Check area, designed to expedite the screening of travelers through security, was packed. In some places, there are long lines at the entrance of Bush Airport and the local station KHOU 11 in Houston, and you need to go through security checks. report.
As for how long the delays might last, Houston Airport System Aviation Director Jim Szczesniak said they will continue as long as the government is shut down.
“The federal government shutdown has impacted TSA staffing and operations across the country, and Houston Airports is doing everything possible to support our TSA partners to ensure passengers travel safely and efficiently,” he said in a statement Sunday. “We ask that passengers continue to arrive early and anticipate extended security wait times until the federal government shutdown is resolved.”
How the federal government shutdown affects air travel
The federal government was established just over a month ago, on October 1, after Congress failed to pass an appropriations bill to keep the government running.
The shutdown has impacted air travel as federal workers, including Transportation Security Administration agents, air traffic controllers and airport security personnel, have been furloughed, working without pay or not reporting to work. Transportation Security Administration (TSA) lines are extended and flights are delayed or canceled due to severe staffing shortages.
Some airlines, including United, Delta, American Airlines and JetBlue, are even providing food to TSAs who continue to go to work.
“United Airlines is donating meals to air traffic controllers and other federal workers who are behind on wages,” the airline said Tell CBS News. “We are grateful to the hard-working federal employees who keep the air travel system running.”
Delta is also offering limited meals to transportation workers but is still operating “under strict rules for federal government agency employees.”
Even without pay, TSA workers No strike allowed Because they are federal workers. In 1981, 13,000 air traffic controllers went on strike after negotiations over pay and work arrangements, but the Reagan administration fired 11,000 of them and banned them from ever working for the federal government again. But there are still some TSA and air traffic controllers who simply didn’t go to workbut Transport Secretary Sean Duffy said he would not sack them.
“They need support, they need money, they need paychecks,” Duffy told CBS on Sunday. “They don’t need to be fired.”
air traffic control shortage
Before the government shutdown, there were already air traffic controller shortage– This problem only came to light after a major incident earlier this year. In January, a fatal mid-air collision between an American Airlines jet and an Army Black Hawk helicopter near Reagan National Airport killed 67 people.
An internal FAA safety report showed the air traffic control tower was severely understaffed: Only one controller was handling communications for both helicopters and planes that night. The incident exposed a serious shortage of air traffic controllers, with the FAA still short of about 3,000 controllers. The FAA said that as of November 1 Nearly half of major air traffic control facilities are short-staffed As the government shutdown continues.
Although air traffic controller salaries are relatively high, approx. $145,000 per yearit’s not an easy job to get or keep.
“It takes a long time to train an air traffic controller,” said Mary Schiavo, a former DOT inspector general. Tell CNN earlier this year. “It was very expensive. About a third of it was eliminated because it was so restrictive.”
Air traffic control is obsolete
Most importantly, America’s air traffic control system Seriously outdated.
Transport Secretary Sean Duffy admitted earlier this year that some of the decades-old equipment used by air traffic controllers looks like this left the set Apollo 13and compare it with the 1967 Volkswagen beetle.
Meanwhile, Delta CEO Ed Bastian said that because of aging air traffic control systems, flights from Atlanta to LaGuardia actually take longer today than it did for airlines to launch the route in the 1950s.
“That’s the air traffic control system. It’s very slow. And it’s crowded,” Bastian told today in May. “If you modernize the sky, you can make it more efficient.”
As the holiday travel rush approaches, travel delays are more anxiety-provoking than ever. But there is no real foresight as to how long the government shutdown will last, and how long the air travel nightmare will continue.