{"id":549071,"date":"2026-03-27T20:08:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-27T20:08:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/549071\/"},"modified":"2026-03-27T20:08:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-27T20:08:09","slug":"airports-tell-panicked-travelers-dont-get-here-so-early","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/549071\/","title":{"rendered":"Airports tell panicked travelers: Don\u2019t get here so early"},"content":{"rendered":"

Images of never-ending security lines<\/a> at U.S. airports and frustrating tales of missed flights are pushing panicked travelers to show up way before their departures. But some airports where the wait times<\/a> have been manageable are telling passengers to stop arriving so early.<\/p>\n

In Ohio, John Glenn International Airport in Columbus says early birds \u2014 reacting to the funding standoff on Capitol Hill<\/a> that\u2019s creating crowded security checkpoints \u2014 are making things worse by creating bottlenecks during peak times. <\/p>\n

\u201cArriving too early can actually create longer lines right when we open,\u201d the airport said in a social media post Thursday. \u201cSpacing out arrival times helps keep things moving smoothly for everyone.\u201d <\/p>\n

The airport even created a chart showing when to arrive: \u201c90 minutes before departure is all you need.\u201d <\/p>\n

What\u2019s confusing for air passengers, though, is that it\u2019s hard to predict<\/a> which airports will be plagued next by security lines spilling out of terminals.<\/p>\n

The government shutdown straining Transportation Security Administration staffing has ballooned checkpoint wait times beyond two hours at some major airports. George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston has become the biggest chokepoint<\/a> for travelers with four-hour security lines.<\/p>\n

Those are by far the worst-case scenarios. Many airports \u2014 like the one in Ohio \u2014 have been seeing wait times comparable with those in normal times. That\u2019s why airlines say the best advice for passengers right now is to check TSA wait times before their scheduled departures.<\/p>\n

In some ways, it\u2019s a bit reminiscent of the days of \u201c panic buying<\/a> \u201d during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s human nature. You don\u2019t have control over what\u2019s going on at an airport,\u201d said Shari Botwin, a Philadelphia clinical social worker who counsels people about anxiety.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s so much media attention about the chaos at airports,\u201d she said. \u201cThey might not trust when someone says, \u2019Well, you don\u2019t need to come out early anymore.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Associated Press reporter Ed White in Detroit contributed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Images of never-ending security lines at U.S. airports and frustrating tales of missed flights are pushing panicked travelers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":549072,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[9178,28,24895,3827,939,6498,793,149,12303,6454,244549,14182,795],"class_list":["post-549071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-aerospace-and-defense-industry","tag-business","tag-columbus","tag-domestic-news","tag-finance","tag-finance-business","tag-general-news","tag-lifestyle","tag-oh-state-wire","tag-ohio","tag-shari-botwin","tag-transportation-security-administration","tag-u-s-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549071","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=549071"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549071\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/549072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=549071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=549071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=549071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}