![\"Long](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/6v04nx6klorff9su.jpg\")
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AUSTIN, Texas – Travelers at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport were once again seen waiting in long lines for security and check-in.<\/p>\n
What they’re saying:<\/p>\n
ABIA posted on social media that it’s expecting a record-breaking volume of people, an estimated 38,000, to fly out today.<\/p>\n
Videos showed the long lines at around 4:30 a.m. but as the morning has gone on, the lines were still long, but were not seen out the door.<\/p>\n
The backstory:<\/p>\n
Thousands of travelers at the Austin airport found themselves in a security nightmare Friday morning. Lines wrapped out the door and onto the sidewalks as the start of SXSW clashed with critical staffing shortages at TSA.<\/p>\n It was a similar scene on Friday, March 13, when passenger lines also extended outside the terminal.<\/p>\n Many are not only traveling for SXSW but also spring break, Rodeo Austin and St. Patrick’s Day activities.<\/p>\n This year, the annual hustle and bustle of Austin\u2019s festival season is even more stressful for airport workers, as it coincides with a partial government shutdown.<\/p>\n Congress remains deadlocked over funding for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the Transportation Security Administration. The TSA is among more than 100,000 federal employees working without pay.\u00a0<\/p>\n Dig deeper:<\/p>\n The CEOs of major U.S. airlines urged Congress recently to make a deal to ensure that TSA workers and other federal air travel employees will continue getting paid when the government shuts down.<\/p>\n The CEOs of Alaska Air, American Airlines, Atlas, Delta, FedEx, JetBlue, Southwest, United, UPS and Airlines for America wrote an open letter to Congress<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n What you can do:<\/p>\n Airport officials are advising passengers to arrive two and a half hours early for domestic flights and three hours early for international travel.<\/p>\n Officials say passengers should expect lines for TSA, airline ticket counters and more.<\/p>\n Make note of the checkpoints that you can use.<\/p>\n Check your flight status<\/a> before you head to the airport.<\/p>\n Full details can be found on the ABIA website here<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Source: Information from Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, reporting by Jessica Rivera and previous coverage.<\/p>\n Austin-Bergstrom International Airport<\/a>Austin<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AUSTIN, Texas – Travelers at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport were once again seen waiting in long lines for security…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":526918,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[237186,6778,4,450,451,3,12325,452,453,203167,4652,25],"class_list":["post-526917","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking-news","tag-abia","tag-austin","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-organization","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories","tag-travis-county","tag-tx","tag-us"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/526917","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=526917"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/526917\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/526918"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=526917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=526917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=526917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Long](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/ene9tq607sdzo1x8.jpg\")
Long TSA lines at Austin airport<\/a> <\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/tsacheckpoint.png\")
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