Originally Posted by SirFlysALot
Words we can all live by!
To be truthful you can never really know what it is going to be like at the airport. Most times there is a 5 minute wait. At other times it is a zoo and security is examining everybody and everything for some unexplained reason. And an hour in line is possible. To me the worst case is that you will have some nice quiet time to read at the gate for an extra hour.
One of the things TSA was looking into was posting peak period waiting times on the internet to help passengers anticipate long waiting times and perhaps plan their travel accordingly. The problem is that it's not a constant factor. For example, for our shift (10:30 am - 7 pm), Saturdays are basically dead. However, for our morning shift (4 am - 1230 pm), it's their busiest day (hence the overlap of shifts). When we come in at 10:30, they're basically wrapping up a busy day for them, and because there are additional screeners available, the passenger load never overwhelms us. There are a couple "howevers." If one of the airlines has a special charter or if there's a big convention in town, then all bets are off and our Saturdays may be like our Sundays which is our busiest day of the week (ironically, Sunday mornings are the slowest day of the week for first shift).
The problem with attempting to post peak period waiting times is that there are too many dynamics involved that would, in the end, frustrate passengers and screeners alike. A standard rule-of-thumb strategy of showing up two hours early is easier.