TSA said that on Sunday it had a 7.7% national rate in unscheduled absences for its workers and it was 5.6% on Saturday.

A 7.7% unscheduled absence rate means that there has been a huge increase in unscheduled absences from prior years.

My bet is that unscheduled absence rates aren’t evenly distributed across all airports, and that the rates are more likely to be higher in some parts of the country than in other parts of the country.

This is a relatively off-peak travel time of the year, and that’s why the passengers aren’t all that aware yet of what the shutdown means for them personally. At some point an absence rate this high will make for even way worse than usual screening lines at airports.