CBS News reporting<\/a> nearly 40% calling out on Tuesday alone nationwide.<\/p>\nAt an OIA food court, Jeff Atkins, having just flown into Orlando from Halifax, Canada with his wife and sons, said he was looking forward to visiting beaches on Florida\u2019s Gulf Coast and going to baseball games. But he doesn\u2019t feel the same about having to go through TSA when his vacation ends.<\/p>\n
Atkins said he and his family have gone on several trips to Florida before, all through OIA, but have never seen the airport\u2019s TSA lines this bad. While he and his family are flying through the prechecked lines, he said he might have changed travel plans if he had to go through the standard ones.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know we wouldn\u2019t have come,\u201d he said. \u201c[But] it would have made me sort of rethink our flights at least, maybe a smaller airport.\u201d<\/p>\n
Other travelers were less concerned with the delays.<\/p>\n
22-year-old Jabz Lim, flying back to Connecticut with his grandfather and other relatives after visiting for spring break, said the wait times could be worse.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s crazy, but I mean it is what it is. You can\u2019t really do much about it,\u201d he said. \u201cWe could complain all day but it\u2019s not going to change anything. Just go with the flow.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lim, who has several relatives serving in the military, said he sympathized with the TSA agents as his own relatives have been similarly impacted by past government shutdowns. He agreed with his grandfather, who himself is a veteran, that the agents should get paid for their hard work.<\/p>\n
Cesar Londono, an Orlando resident flying to Washington, D.C. for work, said he had seen OIA lines in the past that were \u201ca lot\u201d worse. When speaking about the partial funding lapse, he was more critical of federal workers than sympathetic.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think that they themselves are allocating the personnel in a way that is effective. So do I want them to lose their job? No. Do I think it\u2019s fair? No. But I think there should be some transparency\u201d in how resources are being used in the context of lines, he said.<\/p>\n
Despite the security delays, OIA spokesperson Angela Starke said Wednesday there hadn\u2019t been a dramatic decrease in the number of TSA agents processing passengers at Orlando\u2019s airport, allowing staffing levels to remain \u201cmostly normal.\u201d<\/p>\n
She attributed any delays to spring break travel and flight cancellations over the past few days to nationwide storms.<\/p>\n
Over one 24-hour period from Tuesday to Wednesday, there were 46 cancellations at OIA, according to Flight Tracker, and there were nearly 200 flight delays on Wednesday and more than 100 Thursday.<\/p>\n
![\"Sen.](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/AP26077522463297-1.jpg\")
Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., President Donald Trump’s pick for Homeland Security secretary, testifies during a Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs hearing, Wednesday, March 18, 2026 on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo\/Manuel Balce Ceneta)<\/p>\n
U.S. Sen. Markwayne Mullin, Trump\u2019s choice to take over as Homeland Security secretary after firing outgoing secretary Kristi Noem, said it was imperative to fully fund the department.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have to get DHS funded,\u201d Mullin said at an oft-contentious Senate hearing Wednesday. \u201cWe have to set the partisan side down.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re playing with fire,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
The New York Daily News contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A standoff over federal TSA funding combined with an influx of spring break travelers and bad weather nationwide…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":198118,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[28,29,114,266,115,1335,139,141,140,99,109,76686,1798],"class_list":["post-198117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-florida","tag-florida-news","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-orange-county","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-politics","tag-social","tag-social-business","tag-transportation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=198117"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198117\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/198118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=198117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=198117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=198117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Airline](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/US_Travel_Delays_85847.jpg\")
Airline passengers wait in long lines to get through the TSA security screening at George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston on Wednesday, March 18, 2026. (AP Photo\/Lekan Oyekanmi)<\/p>\n