{"id":143492,"date":"2026-03-20T06:15:21","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T06:15:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/143492\/"},"modified":"2026-03-20T06:15:21","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T06:15:21","slug":"philadelphia-airport-flight-passengers-face-huge-lines-after-checkpoint-closures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/143492\/","title":{"rendered":"Philadelphia airport flight passengers face huge lines after checkpoint closures"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!\n <\/p>\n

While TSA officers on the front lines of airports across the nation continue to miss their paychecks, chaos is gripping some U.S. airports.<\/a><\/p>\n

Footage from the Philadelphia International Airport, shot early Thursday morning, shows hundreds of passengers waiting on elevators and escalators to get through a security check point.<\/p>\n

The airport\u00a0announced it was temporarily closing three security checkpoints “to help optimize operations across other checkpoints,” starting Wednesday.<\/p>\n

TSA WARNS OF SECURITY ‘THREAT’ AS AIRPORT CHECKPOINT CLOSURES TRIGGER MORE TRAVEL DELAYS<\/a><\/p>\n

The Philadelphia International Airport has a total of\u00a0six main checkpoints<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 now with just half of those points open and operating.<\/p>\n

\"Travelers <\/p>\n

The Philadelphia International Airport has temporarily closed three security checkpoints. Pictured above, the scene on Thursday morning at the airport. (FOX 29)<\/p>\n

An airport spokesperson told Fox News Digital that airport staff were on hand to direct flight passengers through the lines.<\/p>\n

CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP FOR OUR LIFESTYLE NEWSLETTER<\/a><\/p>\n

“The longest wait time was 44 minutes at our D\/E checkpoint, which opens at 3 a.m., the first checkpoint to open,” said the spokesperson.<\/p>\n

\"Travelers <\/p>\n

An airport spokesperson told Fox News Digital that airport staff were on hand to direct flight passengers through the lines. (FOX 29)<\/p>\n

TSA wait times are posted on the Philadelphia International Airport\u2019s website.<\/p>\n

As of 9 a.m., the longest wait time was at the airport’s Terminal B checkpoint, at 20 minutes \u2014 which the spokesperson said was “not unusual for this time of day.”<\/p>\n

CLICK HERE FOR MORE LIFESTYLE STORIES<\/a><\/p>\n

The spokesperson added that the closure of three checkpoints was “due to TSA staffing constraints caused by the partial government shutdown<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport has had lines as long as 90 minutes with the airport posting on X to alert travelers to arrive three hours early.<\/p>\n

“According to TSA projections, ATL expects nearly 350K travelers from Thursday, March 19, through Sunday, March 22,” the airport wrote on X.<\/p>\n

Acting Deputy TSA Administrator Adam Stahl told Fox News Digital this week that as the shutdown drags on, the TSA faces the risk of losing even more officers.<\/p>\n

\"Airport <\/p>\n

Over 360 TSA officers\u00a0have quit their jobs so far during this shutdown, while there was a national callout rate of 10.19% on Sunday. (Mark Felix\/Bloomberg via Getty Images)<\/p>\n

“The reality is [that] as this continues, as our officers continue not to receive a paycheck, it just stretches into weeks \u2026 [and] rates [of callouts] are going to continue to go up,” said Stahl.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“We’re going to have individuals that can’t afford to go into work and individuals quit, possibly altogether.”<\/p>\n

TEST YOURSELF WITH OUR LATEST LIFESTYLE QUIZ<\/a><\/p>\n

So far, 366\u00a0TSA officers<\/a>\u00a0have quit during the shutdown, while there was a national callout rate of 10.19% on Sunday, a TSA spokesperson told Fox News Digital this week.<\/p>\n

“We\u2019re determining [airport and security line closures] based on staffing, but we have federal security directors on the ground who are experts in their particular airport, the configuration, demographic, and travel and patterns tied to that [respective] airport,” he also said.<\/p>\n

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP<\/a><\/p>\n

Khloe Quill of Fox News Digital contributed reporting.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ashley J. DiMella is a lifestyle reporter with Fox News Digital.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! While TSA officers on the front lines of airports across…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":143493,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[26209,1817,1014,23090,837,65620,69,71,70,4491],"class_list":["post-143492","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-airlines","tag-airports","tag-government-shutdown","tag-homeland-security","tag-lifestyle","tag-odd-news","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143492","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=143492"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143492\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/143493"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=143492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=143492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=143492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}