Dulles closes screening lanes, lines sprawl in Atlanta as shutdown strains air travel

Washington Dulles International on Monday became the latest airport to close screening lanes because of absences by unpaid TSA agents, adding to a pileup as the 23-day-old government shutdown strains air travel across the country.

Miami International and Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport similarly announced checkpoint closures over the weekend because of a higher-than-usual rate of no-shows by TSA agents. Meanwhile, passengers at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport — the busiest in the world — were stuck in security lines more than an hour long Monday morning after closures of at least six security lanes, the Atlanta Journal Constitution reported.

“We are down a few security lanes because of the shutdown,” an Atlanta airport spokeswoman told POLITICO. “The lines are long but there is a continuous flow; they are moving.”

The news came three days after TSA agents missed their first paychecks since the shutdown began. By Monday, the number of unscheduled absences at the agency had doubled to 7.6 percent, compared with 3.2 percent for the same day the previous year.

“We’re very concerned that the current situation of government employees working without pay is unsustainable,” said Christopher Bidwell, senior vice president of security at Airports Council International-North America.

At Dulles, TSA, airport and airline officials decided Monday morning to “consolidate checkpoints” because of the absences, TSA spokesman Michael Bilello said. He partially attributed the absences to this weekend’s snowstorm but acknowledged that it was “slightly higher than a normal call-out rate.”

TSA has vowed that airport security will not be compromised by the shutdown. It has also tried to soften the financial blow to screeners by pledging to compensate agents for the first day of the shutdown and provide $500 bonuses this week.

Still, most airports expect that TSA staffing issues will worsen and, like Miami and others, have developed contingency plans to help them manage security lanes, Bidwell said.

The airports council and House Democrats have urged TSA to find another way to pay screeners. For example, it could consider tapping into security fee revenue that airline passengers pay as part of the price of a ticket.

However, TSA has said it doesn’t have access to that money. Congress annually takes more than a billion dollars of TSA fee revenue for general deficit reduction and the remainder is required to be deposited in the Treasury, Bilello told POLITICO.

Article originally published on POLITICO Magazine

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Source: https://www.politico.com/story/2019/01/14/government-shutdown-tsa-airports-lines-1081641
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The Article Was Written/Published By: sbeasley@politico.com (Stephanie Beasley)

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