Originally Posted by pbr6891
The more I think about it, the more I believe my primary issue with the current system at IAD is more the fact that you cannot predict given the same circumstances (same day of the week, same time of day, no special case like holiday) how long its going to take.
And I must add the variance is quite large and makes absolutely no sense: case in point yesterday (wed before thanksgiving) by any means the worst day for travel I barely waited 5 minutes in line at IAD security @ 3PM ... A couple weeks prior to that (midweek, mid-afternoon) I spent 45min to go through ...
This inconsistency of screening time is one of the big issues for those of us passing through airports weekly. As you said...same airport, same time, no unusual circumstances...and yet one week there is no wait and the next it’s 30-45 minutes.
And you can hardly plan for the zero wait time...you really need to factor in the worst case scenario. This often results in needless minutes/hours spent cooling your heels in some airline gate area.
It would be very helpful if we could get....from some source... a real-time estimate of the checkpoint lines before leaving for the airport.
Delta uses historical data and publishes estimated wait times on their website. But the info is virtually useless because so many circumstances can change the wait times dramatically. Plus the estimates of wait time aren’t buttoned up enough to be meaningful. An estimate of wait times that ranges from 5 minutes to 75 minutes at a particular airport is useless when planning your schedule.