Passengers at the nation’s busiest airport are feeling the pinch of the government shutdown and it’s coming in the forms of long security lines. Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport is warning passengers to give themselves at least three hours to clear security. #ATL is experiencing longer than usual wait times during peak travel. Please plan ahead and give yourself 3 hours to clear security. ✈️ — Atlanta Airport (@ATLairport) January 14, 2019 The notice comes as the government shutdown has agents with the Transportation Security Administration on the job but without pay. As a result, the agency is experiencing a higher-than-normal absentee rate. Michael Bilello, a spokesperson for the TSA, said the agency’s unscheduled absentee rate Monday was 6.8 percent compared to 2.5 percent one year ago on the same day. Issues with screenings have prompted several airports – including Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport, Miami International Airport, Washington Dulles International Airport and Hartsfield-Jackson – to close terminals and consolidate security checkpoints. Personnel is being relocated to help assist in airports with staffing shortages. “TSA Federal Security Directors, in concert with the airport and servicing airlines will announce when lane closures occur so passengers can plan accordingly,” Bilello said. “TSA will reallocate screening officers on a national basis to meet staffing shortages that cannot be addressed locally. “For questions about terminal closings, travelers should seek current airline and airport information before arriving at the airport,” he added. Alabama’s busiest airport, Birmingham’s Shuttlesworth International, is not reporting extended delays. We want to take time and say thank you to all of the @TSA and @FAANews employees, here @BHMAirport. We appreciate your hard work and service to the Birmingham community! pic.twitter.com/77LboQ8L2c — Shuttlesworth Int'l (@BHMAirport) January 14, 2019 The government shutdown Dec. 22, shuttering many operations of the departments of Homeland Security, Justice, Interior, State and Housing and Urban Development. About 800,000 federal employees are either furloughed without pay or at work but not receiving a paycheck until the shutdown ends.<doc-sep>Travel troubles continue to mount from the lingering government shutdown, with the TSA reporting a spike in worker call outs Monday. Travelers in Atlanta were greeted with security line waits of more than an hour at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport Monday, a busy day for business travel. At one point, six security lanes were closed, according to the Atlanta Journal Constitution. Passengers took to social media to complain about the lines and warn other passengers to arrive at the airport hours before their flights. At Houston Bush Intercontinental, the ticketing counter and security checkpoints at Terminal B, home to United airlines, were closed over the weekend due to security staffing concerns, and they remained closed Monday. Flights are still departing from the terminal but passengers are being sent to Terminal C or Terminal E to check in and go through security. The airport says passengers can walk or take the Skyway tram to Terminal B to reach their gate. Airport and city officials are advising travelers to "allow plenty of time for this change.'' Airports are trying to get ahead of TSA staffing issues related to the shutdown as TSA union officials predict an increasing number of agents working without pay will call out or quit. Miami was among the first, closing one of its terminals early over the weekend. Miami's checkpoint operations returned to normal Monday. The rate of no shows by TSA employees on Monday was more than double the rate of a year ago, TSA spokesman Michael Bilello said on Twitter. Nationally, the percentage of unscheduled absences was 7.6 percent, compared with 3.2 percent on Monday, January 15, 2018. Sen. Christopher Coons, D-Del., told reporters Monday that he is concerned about tens of thousands of federal law enforcement working without paychecks and hundreds of thousands of workers furloughed. “Today is the first day that I’m getting unsolicited texts and calls from Delawareans who are traveling and are really struck at the delay and uncertainty around TSA, FAA and aviation security,” Coons said. “This shutdown has gone on far too long.” Contributing: Bart Jansen, USA TODAY<doc-sep>The government shutdown – and growing absenteeism among Transportation Security Administration screeners – is causing delays at major airports across the U.S. The latest information from the TSA shows the wait time at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport – the nation’s busiest – remain the longest in the country. Passengers in Atlanta waited an average of 47 minutes to clear security checkpoints Thursday, up from just over 30 minutes the day before. Officials at Hartsfield-Jackson are advising passengers to arrive two hours before their flight, a drop of one hour from a previous recommendation of three hours. Extra staff from other cities has been brought in to Atlanta to alleviate wait times. As of Friday morning, 25 of the airport’s 27 security lines were open, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Other long waits were reported in Minneapolis−Saint Paul International Airport (36 minutes); Seattle (31 minutes); and Newark Liberty International Airport (29 minutes). The increase in wait times comes as TSA warns of a high volume of travelers ahead of the weekend MLK holiday weekend. More than 2 million passengers are expected to be screened today, with a total of 8 million expected between today and Jan. 21. TSA reported 6.4 percent of its workforce were out due to unscheduled absences, an increase of 3.8 percent from the same day a year ago. TSA officers are on the job but not being paid during the government shutdown and the absences, the agency said in daily update, come from some who are “not able to report to work due to financial limitations.” How to find the wait time at your airport TSA’s My TSA App has wait time information from major airports. The app posts estimated wait times, actual delays may be significantly longer.<doc-sep>Long security lines plagued travelers at several airports across the country Monday due to the partial government shutdown. The stalemate which has left over 800,000 workers without pay, dragged on into a 25th day Tuesday. Travelers at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport had to wait for more than an hour for passengers to get through domestic checkpoints, the first business day after security screeners missed paychecks for the first time during the shutdown. "It's chaos out here," passenger Vincent Smith said as he stood in a line that snaked through the Atlanta airport's atrium and baggage claim areas. "This line, I've been here about 15 minutes and it has moved 2 feet." Security lines at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta on Monday. John Spink / Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP The long lines come as President Donald Trump and Democrats in Congress remain locked in negotiations over funding for Trump's proposed border wall — the dispute that led to the partial government shutdown last month. Some analysts say they believe the growing problems at the nation's airports could increase the sense of urgency to find a solution because of the potential toll that airport delays could have on the U.S. economy. The long waits at all three checkpoints in the domestic terminal of the world's busiest airport were reported on its website. An airport spokesperson acknowledged the situation Monday morning but said the lines were still moving. "Lines are long this morning, but they usually are on Mondays," said Elise Durham, the airport's communications director. "We are down a few security lines, but things are moving pretty efficiently." Passengers described the situation differently on social media, saying they'd been waiting on security lines for two or even three hours. "After standing in line to get through TSA for 3 & 1/2 hours by the grace of God, I made my flight home!" bomb_and_beautiful wrote on Instagram. Others reportedly weren't so lucky. "We've never seen lines so long and now we're inline with people who've missed their flights," twigshomeandlighting wrote in an Instagram post, including video of the winding crowds. Durham referred reporters to the Transportation Security Administration for further information, but the agency's media line had a recorded message saying employees were unable to answer phone calls because of the lapse in federal funding. Other airports suffered similar problems. TSA officials closed some security checkpoints at Washington Dulles International Airport after more employees than usual failed to show up for work, NBC's Washington affiliate reported. TSA officials took to Twitter to say the no-shows were because of heavy snow in the area — not the shutdown. A terminal at Houston's George Bush Intercontinental Airport also remained closed Monday for a second day amid a shortage of security workers who have gone unpaid during the partial government shutdown, officials said. The TSA issued a statement acknowledging that a number of personnel didn't show up for work on Monday. "This morning, TSA experienced a national rate of 7.6 percent unscheduled absences compared to a 3.2 percent rate one year ago, Monday, January 14, 2018," the statement said, adding that "security standards remain uncompromised at our nation's airports." The statement did not mention airport wait times, as previous TSA statements during the shutdown have done. Joseph Brusuelas, chief economist at the accounting firm RSM US, told NBC News that increased airport woes might force both sides to find a way to end the shutdown because of the potential affects on businesses. “If you see the shutdown impact business travel, it will have an outsize impact” because members of Congress will “hear from their contributor base in addition to their constituents," Brusuelas said. "You could have Republicans begin to talk openly about a solution that does not include the president.” The shutdown is being felt in different ways across the country. In Kanawha, Iowa, farmers who've been feeling the brunt of the administration's trade war with China now can't get highly anticipated crop reports because the Department of Agriculture has run out of funding. The reports help farmers decide what to plant. “It seems like every day we wake up there’s a new crisis. If it's not with the tariff situation, it's with not seeing a report," said Doug Thompson, who farms 2000 acres of corn and soybeans with his two sons. "There’s a lot of business decisions that just need a little more clarity." Another Kanawha farmer, Brent Renner, said, “My message to Washington is to quit the bickering. Sit down and understand that people across the nation are affected by this." There was still no end in sight to the shutdown, which is the longest in the country's history. Trump on Monday rejected a Republican senator's proposal to end the impasse. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a top Trump ally, proposed a short-term fix over the weekend, urging Trump to reopen the government for a few weeks so that Republicans could negotiate with Democrats over border security and funding for Trump's proposed wall. If no deal were reached at the end of that time frame, Graham said on "Fox News Sunday" that Trump could then use his national emergency powers to build the wall. Trump nixed the idea. "I did reject it," he told reporters at the White House, adding, "I'm not looking to call" a national emergency. President Donald Trump speaks to the media outside of the White House on Monday. Jim Lo Scalzo / EPA Earlier in the morning, Trump blamed the stalled negotiations on Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. "Nancy and Cryin' Chuck can end the Shutdown in 15 minutes," he tweeted. "At this point it has become their, and the Democrats, fault!" At a Dec. 11 meeting with the Democratic leaders, Trump said he would be "proud" to shut down the government over funding for his proposed border wall. "I will be the one to shut it down. I won't blame you for it," he said at the time. The chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., urged the president to open the government soon.<doc-sep>
Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, long the world's busiest, saw security lines lasting up to an hour and a half on Monday As the airport security lines around him stretched on for an hour or more, Peter Phillips had a short reaction to all the waiting. “It’s just horrible,” he told the Atlanta Journal-Constitutionon Monday of the lengthy delays at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, long the world’s busiest, which saw lines lasting up to an hour and a half. Photos and videos of the crowds circulated widely on social media. “This may be the longest security line I have ever seen. Even growing up here, and even for a Monday morning,” CNN’s Omar Jimenez wrote on Twitter along with the video of one security line that reached back to the airport entrance. “One passenger told me he’d been waiting over an hour and still had about 30 minutes to go. Writer Aaron Gould Sheinin chronicled an even lengthier delay on Twitter, saying it took him two and a half hours to get through security after arriving to find the line stretched back to baggage claim. The cause? Staffing shortages, according to the AJC, which reported Monday that TSA employees who are required to work without pay during the federal government shutdown have instead been unusually absent from work. In a statement, the TSA said its unscheduled absences on Monday were 6.8 percent nationally — nearly three times the rate a year prior. (The agency declined to release airport-specific figures, citing security concerns.) This follows a CNN report earlier this month, disputed by the TSA at the time, that their employees were calling in sick rather than work without pay. The TSA stressed that “national average wait times” were normal, though “some airports” saw far longer lines, including Atlanta. “Overall, 99.1 percent of passengers waited less than 30 minutes,” the TSA said. The remaining 0.9 percent, or 17,000 people, did not. In a statement last week, an official with the the American Federation of Government Employee, which represents TSA employees, said “some of them have already quit and many are considering quitting the federal workforce because of this shutdown,” according to The Daily Beast. On Sunday the AFGE president said, in part: “These women and men signed up to serve their country, and they do a remarkable job keeping us safe – even when they’re not being compensated to do so.” Sheinin, traveling through Hartsfield-Jackson on Monday, noted unused security checkpoints as he wound his way toward his gate, and the AJC reported that six domestic security lanes were closed. “A lot of people in line have missed their flights,” Phillips told the paper. “There needs to be some sort of Plan B when this stuff happens.” An anonymous air traffic controller speaking with The Daily Beast about Monday’s delays said, “Everything is a mess here. No one knows who is open, who is working or what terminals are functioning. It’s a total s—show that won’t be solved until the shutdown is over.” “Today, we did feel the impact of the federal shutdown more than we have thus far,” an airport spokeswoman told the AJC of Monday’s lines, while also noting the day of the week was already known for higher volume. The TSA said it “made adjustments to maximize all available operational resources” at Hartsfield-Jackson, according to the AJC, but nonetheless advised that “travelers should contact their airline before traveling because times may be affected.” A security checkpoint at one of Houston’s airports reportedly closed Sunday into Monday over similar staffing issues. “As TSA has stated previously, airports in certain locations will begin exercising consolidation options during peak periods,” agency spokesman Michael Bilello told The Daily Beast. “These decisions will be made at the local level.” On Twitter Monday, Hartsfield-Jackson said much the same, tweeting that the airport was “experiencing longer than usual wait times during peak travel. Please plan ahead and give yourself 3 hours to clear security.” On Tuesday morning, the airport said on Twitter that wait times were down to less than 15 minutes. Reached Tuesday morning by phone, a Hartsfield-Jackson spokesman asked for questions to be submitted by email; representatives did not immediately respond. A TSA official did not respond to a request for comment. Some 800,000 federal workers are going without pay — either at work as essential employees or furloughed — while the government remains shutdown over President Donald Trump‘s calls for funding for a border wall, which Congressional Democrats have rejected.