CLAYTON COUNTY, Ga. — Every single day this week, travelers have waited in long security lines at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.
Transportation Security Administration sick calls are hitting 38% at the world’s busiest airport, Houston and Philadelphia are at 33% percent and JFK is at 25%.
Atlanta airport general manager Ricky Smith is in Washington, D.C., meeting with policy makers to make sure this doesn’t happen again. He’s speaking only to Channel 2 Action News.
“Will you expect employees to work without getting paid? And the average TSA worker is paid about $34,000, $35,000 a year. That’s not an income that would allow you to sustain weeks of not getting paid,” Smith said.
Two-hour wait times continued Friday morning, with some people still missing flights.
Smith is asking passengers for patience and lawmakers in Washington for a solution.
“Yes, callout levels are high. They are high across the country. But we’re doing everything we can to try to relieve those employees that are coming to work of some of the basic pressures that they have to deal with just to live,” Smith said.
He acknowledges the long wait times have created a ripple affect with travelers snaking thru the terminals. They have had to close checkpoints, including TSA precheck and clear lines.
Delta Airlines CEO Ed Bastian told Channel 2 Action News exclusively, “We want to apologize to our Atlanta customers who have experienced longer lines at security, especially those who traveled during the inclement weather.”
“It is inexcusable that our essential transportation workers are not being paid due to the partial government shutdown,” he added.
“It’s disheartening when we hear an example of a passenger who did everything he or she was supposed to do, that passenger ride more than three hours in advance of the flight and still missed their flight,” Smith said.
Smith says a software glitch created problems in reporting accurate wait times for passengers at the airport, some hours off the actual times.
“That software, that application was overwhelmed with all the traffic that is going on and so the wait time transmission from that software to the website was off and so we to take it down. We worked with the company to repair that,” he said.
[DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks]
RELATED STORIES:
- Sen. Ossoff calls for funding TSA; Republicans signal openness to compromise
- Delta CEO apologizes to Atlanta travelers for massive delays
- 350,000 travelers expected at Atlanta airport this weekend as long TSA lines go on
[SIGN UP: WSB-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter]
©2026 Cox Media Group
