U.S. Airports Enacting Plans for Increased Holiday Traffic

Airlines, airports and the TSA have all teamed up in order to make the season run as best as possible for travelers.

Summer has officially started this week, and airports across the country are preparing to manage an increase in passengers throughout the season. According to USA Today, however, some of the peak moments in traffic during the summer are during the holidays — Independence Day in July and Labor Day in September — but that can vary from an airport to another.

The good news is that everyone is pitching in to help make the increased traffic and long lines run more smoothly. Both airports and airlines, plus the TSA, have hired extra staff for the season and have already reported improvements in passenger processing time.

Many airports expecting peak traffic days have a plan in place. At Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, the TSA has increased staffing, added canine teams and implemented innovation lanes at one security checkpoint to speed up the lines.

Denver International Airport, for example, expects their busiest days to be during the week of the Fourth of July holiday and has hired seven contract security workers to assist with passenger divesting, bin management and line management in order to make passenger processing run faster and more smoothly.

On the west coast, LAX expects to receive 24.5 million passengers this summer, an increase of 7.3% over last summer’s record 22.8 million travelers. They predict that their busiest week will be July 18 to July 24.

“Lines at the TSA passenger screening checkpoints at LAX are being managed,” the airport said in a statement, “but they are expected to grow longer as the summer progresses with more travelers.”

JFK, Miami International Airport and Seattle-Tacoma International Airport have also hired extra staff in anticipation of an even busier summer season.

“The majority of those new officers have already started working at our checkpoints,” said MIA spokesman Greg Chin, and “Thanks to the new officers, we were able to open our Concourse D Checkpoint 4 during MIA’s highest peak hours.”

[Photo: Getty]