Originally Posted by
studentff
Changing your example a bit, if the checkpoint has a capacity to screen 300 pax per hour with 150 pax arriving per hour (occupancy of 50%), wait times would be fairly stable and expected to be 0.40 minutes (computed by 1/(300-150) * 60). If you cut the capacity 8% to 276 pax per hour, occupancy becomes 54% and expected wait time becomes 0.47 minutes (1/(276-150) * 60). That's a nearly 20% increase in wait time, but it's fairly insubstantial because the wait time is so small to begin with.
The question then becomes how close to that knee is a typical TSA checkpoint?
I have no idea, but the last time I experienced a wait time of <1 minute at TSA was a while ago at a very small outstation. Such low utilization would also correspond to a high probability that the system is empty, which is also not something I have observed.