{"id":552775,"date":"2026-03-29T18:31:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-29T18:31:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/552775\/"},"modified":"2026-03-29T18:31:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-29T18:31:08","slug":"us-air-travel-seen-at-breaking-point-as-tsa-lines-at-bwi-other-hubs-stay-long","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/552775\/","title":{"rendered":"US air travel seen at \u2018breaking point\u2019 as TSA lines at BWI, other hubs stay long"},"content":{"rendered":"

BWI Marshall Airport continued advising travelers to arrive hours early Saturday as long security lines persisted, driven in part by staffing shortages among Transportation Security Administration officers during the prolonged federal shutdown<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The guidance came a day after President Donald Trump signed an executive action aimed at addressing disruptions at airports nationwide. In a memo authorizing pay for TSA workers, Trump said \u201cAmerica\u2019s air travel system has reached its breaking point,\u201d according to the Associated Press. TSA officers have been working without pay for more than 40 days amid the partial government shutdown.<\/p>\n

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said TSA workers could begin receiving paychecks as early as Monday.<\/p>\n

Related<\/p>\n

\"Travelers<\/p>\n

A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson thanked Mullin and Trump for their efforts to get TSA employees paid amid the shutdown in a Saturday email to The Baltimore Sun.<\/p>\n

Aviation News<\/p>\n

Stay prepared. Receive the latest airlines news, delivered straight to your inbox.<\/p>\n

By signing up, you agree to our\u00a0Terms of Service<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Privacy Policy.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cDuring this time, over 500 officers have quit, and thousands more have been forced to call out because they can\u2019t afford basic necessities like gas, childcare, food, or rent,\u201d the spokesperson said. \u201cWe are grateful to President Trump for taking action to help fund and pay TSA employees after more than 40 days without a paycheck.\u201d<\/p>\n

DC-area airport in the eye of the storm<\/p>\n

At the airport, security checkpoints A and B were closed, and officials warned of \u201csignificant delays\u201d at Checkpoint C, which are expected to continue throughout Saturday. As of 9 a.m., BWI advised travelers to arrive four hours before their scheduled departures \u2014 far earlier than the typical recommendation of between two and three hours for domestic or international flights.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have not previously experienced checkpoint wait times similar to what we are seeing this morning,\u201d the airport wrote in\u00a0a post to X.<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

The most impacted travelers are those departing from A, B, C concourses. Security Checkpoint D\/E was less impacted this morning, though BWI advised in the post that that might change as the day progresses.<\/p>\n

The delays followed a ground stop issued Friday evening by the Federal Aviation Administration. BWI was one of five airports affected, along with Washington Dulles International, Ronald Reagan Washington National, Charlottesville-Albemarle and Richmond airports.<\/p>\n

The FAA said the ground stop was tied to an Operational Contingency Level, a reduced level of air traffic control services used during emergencies or equipment outages. The disruption was linked to reports of a strong odor at the Potomac Terminal Radar Approach Control facility, which handles air traffic control for the region.<\/p>\n

The ground stop was lifted shortly after 8 p.m., but delays continued into Saturday morning.<\/p>\n

BWI Customer Ambassador Martin Louamou said he had never seen lines like the ones wrapping around the outside of the airport\u2019s terminal entrances ever before in over two decades of working at airports, including at New York\u2019s John F. Kennedy Airport.<\/p>\n

The 62-year-old was posted at the ever-changing end of the line with a sign saying as much to help incoming passengers find where to begin their long wait to get inside the airport, a job that began Friday. Louamou said he\u2019d seen \u201cmany people missing flights\u201d this week, while \u201cbefore, everything was correct.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the line outside, Progress Maduka was not optimistic she would make her Southwest flight to Charlotte with a scheduled takeoff of 1:30 p.m. Saturday. She hoped the order signed by President Trump would kick in pay for TSA \u201cright away.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI understand what \u2026 Congress is fighting for,\u201d Maduka said. \u201cBut right now it\u2019s affecting a lot of people,\u201d including passengers and workers alike.<\/p>\n

Adrien Malick accompanied his daughter, wife and 2-year-old granddaughter in the line outside as they waited, beginning at 10 a.m., to enter the terminal in hopes of making a flight to Sarasota on Saturday afternoon.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve never seen so many people in one place at one time,\u201d Malick said. \u201cIt\u2019s absurd\u2026 It all appears to be politics. Nobody wants the other person to look good.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leslie Pahl, Malick\u2019s daughter, blamed \u201cineffectual leadership\u201d for the delays at BWI.<\/p>\n

U.S. Rep Sarah Elfreth voted against House Republicans\u2019 resolution to fund the Department of Homeland Security, the federal department that runs several national agencies like TSA, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Patrol. Though the U.S. Senate passed a bill to fund DHS, including TSA, without funding ICE and Border Patrol, the House passed a bill to fund the entire department through May 22, according to the Associated Press.<\/p>\n

\u201cRepresenting the Baltimore\/Washington International (BWI) Thurgood Marshall Airport and over 45,000 federal employees, nothing is more important than paying our civil servants and ensuring the American people can travel safely,\u201d Elfreth said in a statement after the vote Friday night.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have always been clear that we cannot fund President Trump\u2019s weaponization of ICE and the brutality they have unleashed on communities around our country,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BWI Marshall Airport continued advising travelers to arrive hours early Saturday as long security lines persisted, driven in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":552776,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4324,4,450,12,451,3,452,453],"class_list":["post-552775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking-news","tag-airlines","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-donald-trump","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552775","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=552775"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552775\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/552776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=552775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=552775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=552775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}