WASHINGTON (TNND) — Airports across the country are asking travelers to arrive early and spend hours waiting in line at security checkpoints with the shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security ramping up a shortage of workers.
The lengthy delays to get through security checkpoints come as more travelers are going on trips for spring break and running into snarls due to the partial government shutdown. Some major airports saw lines snaking down stairs, into parking garages and through concourses, while others asked travelers to arrive well ahead of schedule to make their flights.
Funding for DHS, which oversees the Transportation Security Administration and other agencies, expired in mid-February with Republicans and Democrats locked into a standoff on funding for federal immigration reform.
TSA’s roughly 50,000 workers received a partial paycheck on Feb. 28 and will miss their first full paycheck this week.
It comes less than six months after a record 43-day government shutdown last fall that many TSA workers are still financially recovering from. Staffing shortages at security lines are expected to worsen the longer the shutdown drags on, with little ability for airlines or airports to offset the problem.
Issues with staffing security lines will continue to pile up the longer the shutdown drags on with little ability for airlines or airports to solve it. Delays for getting through security and flights taking off have eased temporarily but are expected to return for the weekend when it is more common to travel.
Unlike the last government shutdown, air traffic controllers are still receiving paychecks and keeping flight schedules mostly on track. Most airports were operating on time as of Tuesday afternoon, according to flight tracking website FlightAware. But industry experts warn staffing gaps at security checkpoints can quickly ripple across the system.
“All it takes is one place to have any sort of delay, and it’s a cascading effect across the country,” said Dan Bubb, an associate professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas Honors College, and former airline pilot. “If you have an hour delay at O’Hare, most people are going to feel that in some capacity.”
Air travel worker unions and the airlines have called on Congress to resolve differences and restore funding as stress mounts on workers.
“The shutdown is having very real consequences, and hardworking federal aviation workers, the airline industry and our passengers are being used as a political football once again. This is simply unacceptable and un-American,” Airlines for America president and CEO Chris Sununu said in a statement.
The disruptions add to the separate challenges facing airlines amid the fallout of the war with Iran that has canceled thousands of flights across the Middle East. It has also spiked the price of jet fuel, the industry’s second-biggest expense, which risks pushing ticket costs higher for travelers.
Airline passengers wait outside the terminal in the parking garage in long lines to get through the TSA security screening at William P. Hobby Airport in Houston, Sunday, March 8, 2026. (Brett Coomer/Houston Chronicle via AP)
“They’re going to have to adjust their schedules. They’re going to constantly be rebooking people, because if they have connections, they’re going to miss those,” Bubb said. “It has a cascading effect throughout the entire industry that’s going to affect everybody.”
There have been few signs of progress between lawmakers on breaking the impasse over funding DHS. Republicans have tried to pressure Democrats to back a funding bill in the aftermath of the war with Iran that has prompted concerns about attacks on the U.S., but have secured little bipartisan support for the funding bill. The GOP-led House has passed bills reopening DHS twice that have stalled out in the Senate.
The Trump administration has blamed Democrats for long lines that are causing Americans to miss spring break flights.
“There is ZERO reason for spring break travel to be held hostage for political points — Democrats must end this DHS shutdown NOW,” the Department of Homeland Security said in a social media post.
Democrats voted for a third time last week against restoring funding to DHS as Republicans have resisted the reforms sought for immigration agents. They have offered a bill that would fund TSA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and Coast Guard while leaving the immigration agencies and secretary’s office without funding, which was rejected by Republicans.
“Democrats want to get TSA agents paid, but we won’t help Republicans cut a blank check to help Stephen Miller terrorize Americans,” Sen. Patty Murray, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, said in a post on X. “And I won’t let Trump blackmail Democrats into funding rogue ICE agents just because he started a war with Iran.”
Delays for travelers have been a common consequence in previous shutdowns and prompted lawmakers to reach a breakthrough. The 2025 shutdown ended after air traffic controllers and TSA screeners didn’t show up to work and the Federal Aviation Administration threatened to reduce flights at major airports ahead of the holiday travel season.
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