The Fed shutdown and TSA lines. What’s your experience?
 

Was just going to post the same question. Also wondering if having TSA-PRE should help much, given checkpoint 5 being all PRE for the last several months...

The owner of our favorite parking lot at SEA tells me she's not getting any negative feedback from guests, attributing that to the slow season,

I have Wednesday MR that I'd cancel if the wait were unusually long.

It appears they have made changes to "help" things again... Saturday morning Checkpoint 5 had reverted to a regular entry, and PreCheck was ONLY at 1 and 4. Checkpoint 4 was pretty slow. The staffing was average, but only two lanes were open. This was about 9AM.

I don't know if the Checkpoint 5 change is permanent or was only on the weekend, but I was surprised to see it.

No TSA issues at all from what I've experienced. Flew right before New Years and the lines were long but moving fast. I have three flights out SeaTac this week and will post back if anything changes.

I flew yesterday (Sunday) afternoon from SEA and the only lines I experienced we're at the Alaska Check-In desks. TSA pre check was empty and maybe 15 people queued in the non precheck line. I think as of right now the wait time issue is overhyped.

Heading to Vegas this weekend so I've been keeping an eye on things.
Right now, it's hard to tell if there's a real story here or if its just being sensationalized because it makes for "good news".

I've read multiple times over the last few days that "sick" rate of TSA agents nearly doubled... but I haven't seen any year-over-year comparison. Is that normal this time of year? Kids are out of school, buses and public transport might be running holiday schedules, its cold & flu season, you may have relatives visiting and sneak in a sick day to hang out, or you may have celebrated the holidays a bit too hard?

Maybe a sick spike is normal at the end of December and start of January?

I also am sure there's at least a couple folks who are upset with the situation and calling in sick as a sort of passive protest. And the longer it goes on the more likely people will get fed up and refuse to work, or slow down work, or just walk off the job. But for now, I recall reading that the TSA Union has no coordinated "sick out" or "slow down" protest going.

I'll just plan to get to the airport much earlier than normal and if I get through security quick, that's just more time to drink at the lounge :)

Some standardization would help

Airport:
Terminal:
Time of day:
Approximate wait time for TSA id check/length of line:
TSA, Priority, Pre?:

I'll report later today.

Yesterday at SEA 12:30PM Precheck line was less than 5 minutes. Regular looked to be about 15.

Monday 1/7/19

Airport: LAS
Terminal: 3
Time of day: 9:00am
Approximate wait time for TSA id check/length of line: <1 minute, < 5 people in line
TSA, Priority, Pre?: Pre

Monday 1/7/19, Seatac, 5:20 AM, Pre-check (check point #1 Cruise ship check point??), Wait time for less than 5 min. It was early so it might help.

LAX
Terminal 6
6pm
No Line. 0 minutes
Pre was walk right up and regular did not have any noticeable lines.

7 January 2019, summary condition GREEN

with LAS, SEA, LAX, ORD, DEN reporting in.

Conclusion: no widespread failures of TSA to keep up with lines.

Will see if things change tomorrow.

SFO. Who are these TSA people you are all talking about?

I posted this in the MVPG 75K Facebook group, but will be "nicer".

While the gvt is "shut down", workers who are affected will only receive snap-back pay for actual hours worked. If you call out sick, you aren't marked sick (because all types of leave are suspended), you are marked on "furlough" which can add some complications to your job status. So, its unpaid. Those out on FMLA, vacation, extended sick, etc leaves - get absolutely nothing when the snapback is approved by Congress.

Also, government workers apparently can't strike. So a walk out is considered a strike, and from a friend that's a union rep for air traffic, said its super bad news and means the government can fire them.

I'm not sure those who are calling out "sick' and aren't... are not very smart individuals.

From ADN:

Sucks if you booked a vacation before the shutdown. Now you are off but not getting paid :-(

All previously scheduled leave is cancelled in the event of a shutdown. If you're deemed "essential" and required to work, you go to work without pay. If you're furloughed instead, you can still go on vacation if you want, but you're also not paid for the time. In addition, any "outside employment" still requires approval by agency ethics officers.

A friend of mine had family vacation scheduled for the holidays, was told to report to work after the shutdown (so vacation was cancelled), is working daily without pay, and has been told by agency ethics folks that driving for Uber is not approved. In all likelihood, most feds will end up getting back-pay for missed time when this is all said and done, but it still doesn't make it any less ridiculous. And it doesn't help the thousands of contractors (particularly those in low-wage roles) that won't get anything back.

Airport: SEA
Terminal: C
Time of day: Mon. Jan 7, 3PM
Approximate wait time for TSA id check/length of line: 0 Min.
TSA, Priority, Pre?: Pre-Check

3 lanes of Pre-Check running at Checkpoint 4, sometimes idle. No wait... I didn't even have enough time to get my ID out or get my stuff ready for X-Ray.

Airport: SEA
Terminal: C
Time of day: Mon. Jan 7, 2 pm
Approximate wait time for TSA id check/length of line: 0 Min.
TSA, Priority, Pre?: TSA

No lines at all in regular, priority or premium.

New ST Article - No Change at SEA
 

Heads up:

Five hours early to the airport? No, says Sea-Tac, shutdown hasn’t slowed security lines

Nothing to see here...yet.

No issues at HNL, PDX, or DCA. Did notice that B terminal @ DCA had one ID checker instead of the usual two.

Like the PoS person said, next week could get ugly. People have bills to pay and junior feds in major cities can't absorb this for too long.

Airport: SEA
Time of day: Wed. Jan 9, 6:30 am
All checkpoints listed as < 15 minutes
1 & 4 are TSA pre only, rest are mixed

I chose 4, not bothering to check if the line at 1 was shorter (strongly suspect it was). There was a significant but fast moving line. Was through in approx 10-12 minutes. I had some items that sometimes set off scanners, e.g. 2 oz of guacamole for a snack. Was mildly surprised to be whisked right through.

Wait time at SFO yesterday around 2:30 pm T2 was normal or below. Maybe 7-8 people in front of me at TSA Pre. 2 Xray belts open, so once I got past the ID I was through in less than a minute. Definitely less than 5 minutes from getting in line to being cleared.

Was wondering this myself... they are a contractor however.

That would depend on the contracting company. Mostly on the contractor's ability to weather delays in payments from their customer(s). For instance, if they have the reserves or ability to raise cash to make payroll, everything could roll on nominally with the contracting company acting as the buffer between Federal payments and their payroll checks.

We will see. I'll report on SFO soon.

Easy.
 

Isn't the point of having them that they're contracted by SFO, rather than the federal government, and have to work to federal standards but they get paid by the airport? Any federal reviewers or auditors might not be working, but their contract should be all from the airport owner (city and county for SFO). The airport owner might get federal subsidies to cover some of the screening contractor costs, but I'd be very surprised if bigger ones like SFO couldn't cover the shortfall for quite a while.

Went thru TSA PRE @ SEA on Sunday 1/6 @ 8:30am, and it was moving very very fast. They told us to put away our boarding passes, and they were just checking ID. Was a first for me, and I am curious if they were doing the same in the regular TSA lines. The regular lines were long, but I could not see how fast they were moving.

@sea Checkpoints 2-4 were crazy busy this morning. I was directed to go to checkpoint 1 (precheck only) and it was wide open.

No, TSA contracts with the private firms, not the airports. I dont know how often TSA pays the contractors, but once they miss a payment I an sure we will be hearing about them too.

That certainly makes it potentially higher impact. Probably more important than the payment is the spending authorization. If the TSA has funded their contract several months out (with invoices billed and paid as work is completed) then things will likely be less affected than other airports. If they authorize funds month to month (unlikely) then it could be a problem at the end of January. About half of what I do is on forward-funded federal contracts and they work like that - invoices won't get paid while the gov't is shut down, but the spending is already authorized up to a certain value, and as long as we don't use that up we keep working.

amazing how much this subject is in the news. I have not seen any widespread TSA delays.

Airport: LAX
Terminal: 6&7
Time of day: 9:00am
Approximate wait time for TSA id check/length of line: looked like 5 minutes
TSA, Priority, Pre?: Pre