CLAYTON COUNTY, Ga. — It’s another day of extremely long security lines at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport and Transportation Security Administration agents were warning travelers the wait times could stretch for hours.
Getting through security at the Atlanta airport took some as long as five hours as a partial government shutdown drags on.
Channel 2’s Bryan Mims was at Hartsfield-Jackson, where many TSA agents are off the job because they’re not getting paid while the shutdown stretches on. Frustrations are surging at the world’s busiest airport.
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In the early afternoon, lines moved at a snail’s pace through South Baggage Claim.
TSA agents told travelers wait times could go as long as five hours and the delay tracker form the airport showed waits were at least 160 minutes long. You can find current wait times the airport is posting here, but the online times have not always matched what travelers are experiencing.
Passengers waiting to board their flights told Mims the waits are inexcusable and outrageous.
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“I’m just up and disgusted that the government can’t get it right,” Ann Hupp, in line to catch a flight to Charlottesville, Va., told Channel 2 Action News. “You know, this is affecting commerce.”
Hupp told Mims she was anxious about missing her flight and aimed her anger squarely at U.S. Congress.
On Saturday night, President Donald Trump announced on social media that he could press agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ICE, into duty at airports to fill in for TSA agents.
Currently, members of Congress are at an impasse on funding for the Department of Homeland Security, which ICE and TSA are parts of.
“I don’t think ICE has a good image,” Tara Griffin, another traveler worried about making her flight said. She said having ICE in airports was ill-advised.
Griffin said the government should act with a sense of urgency to pay TSA agents.
“I’m furious about what’s causing all of this, I think politicians should...” Griffin said. “We don’t have all of this going on.”
Dave Mayer, another traveler, said the airport spectacle was unprecedented.
“I think I’ve lived here for 40 years and I’ve never seen anything like it,” Mayer told Channel 2 Action News. “By the way, it’s ordinary Americans that can’t get on their flights, and no matter what side you’re on, get it fixed.”
Right now, 30% to 40% of TSA agents at the Atlanta airport have called out of work in recent days and some have quit altogether. Travelers say the shutdown ends, and soon.
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