With the federal government shutdown lasting more than a month and no end in sight, airports across Texas are starting to feel the strain.<\/p>\n
Video of hours-long security lines at Houston\u2019s George Bush Intercontinental Airport over the weekend went viral.<\/p>\n
At North Texas airports, some TSA workers say they\u2019re concerned wait times could rise quickly if the situation doesn\u2019t change.<\/p>\n
At Dallas Fort Worth International Airport\u2019s Terminal D on Monday evening, travelers were backed up as far as the eye could see. Multiple security checkpoints showed wait times of more than 20 minutes.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve seen it a couple of times where it\u2019s gotten near 45 minutes or so to an hour,\u201d said Johnny Jones, president of AFGE Local 1040.<\/p>\n
The union representing DFW\u2019s TSA workers said long lines are becoming more likely as the shutdown drags on. TSA employees have gone unpaid for more than 30 days, and union leaders say many workers are struggling to cover basic expenses.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of people that are just straight up out of money, don\u2019t have anything, no food, they don\u2019t have any rent money,\u201d Jones said. \u201cSome of them can\u2019t come to work because they don\u2019t have any money.\u201d<\/p>\n
At Dallas Love Field Airport, the FAA reported flight delays averaging 72 minutes on Monday due to staffing shortages. Travelers there also experienced long security lines.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey had less counters open than last time I flew for the TSA,\u201d said Miguel Silva. \u201cAnd it seemed like they had more people coming through.\u201d<\/p>\n
Airports across Texas have made national headlines for the long wait times. Officials at George Bush Intercontinental in Houston warned that TSA security waits could exceed three hours on Monday due to staffing issues.<\/p>\n
While DFW hasn\u2019t seen lines that long, some TSA employees said the situation could worsen if the shutdown continues and workers miss another paycheck this week.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just don\u2019t see how many people can survive after this without taking serious loans out or somebody providing assistance,\u201d Jones said.<\/p>\n
Several travelers told NBC 5 that anyone flying out of North Texas airports right now needs to plan ahead.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey better have made proper plans,\u201d said Stuart Greenbaum. \u201cYou may miss your flight.\u201d<\/p>\n
NBC 5 reached out to DFW Airport to ask how current wait times compare to pre-shutdown levels and to address TSA staffing concerns.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt DFW, we have not seen substantially increased checkpoint wait times or flight delays related to staffing,\u201d a spokesperson said in a statement. \u201cHowever, passengers should continue to check their flight status with their airline and use the DFW mobile app or website to monitor TSA wait times in case that changes.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With the federal government shutdown lasting more than a month and no end in sight, airports across Texas…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":34391,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[116,118,117,1857],"class_list":["post-34390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-worth","tag-fort-worth","tag-fort-worth-headlines","tag-fort-worth-news","tag-government-shutdown"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34390"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34390\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}