There was a time, not so long ago, when passing through airport security in the United States felt like a predictable inconvenience. You took off your shoes, placed your liquids in a clear plastic bag, shuffled forward with quiet patience, and within a reasonable span of time, you were through. It wasn’t pleasant, but it was known. These days, that sense of predictability has slipped away.
Right now, the experience of going through TSA at US airports feels less like a routine step in a journey and more like a gamble.
The core of the issue comes down to staffing. The Transportation Security Administration is operating under significant strain, with tens of thousands of officers working without pay due to an ongoing funding lapse. That alone creates a quiet but powerful ripple effect. People still show up, still put on their uniforms, still stand at the scanners, but the emotional weight of that reality lingers in the background.
And not everyone is showing up.
Absenteeism has climbed noticeably, with some airports reporting large portions of their screening staff calling out. Others have left their jobs altogether, choosing financial stability over uncertainty. It’s not hard to understand. When your role is essential, but your paycheck is not guaranteed, something begins to fracture.
For travelers, that fracture shows up as lines.
Long ones.
Unpredictable ones.
The kind where you arrive early, thinking you’ve given yourself plenty of time, only to find a slow-moving queue snaking through the terminal. In some airports, wait times stretch to three hours or more. In others, they can exceed four hours on particularly difficult days. And then, almost strangely, at a different airport or even a different terminal, you might walk straight through in under ten minutes.
That inconsistency is what unsettles people the most.
There is no longer a reliable baseline.
Airports like those in Houston, Atlanta, and New Orleans have been hit especially hard, with travelers missing flights not because of weather or mechanical delays, but because they couldn’t get through security in time. Imagine standing in line, watching the minutes tick by, knowing your plane is boarding without you, and there is nothing you can do to move faster.
It changes the emotional tone of travel.
Instead of anticipation, there is diligent calculation.
Instead of excitement, there is a quiet anxiety that begins the moment you leave for the airport. People are now being advised to arrive three, four, or even five hours before their flights. That kind of buffer reshapes the entire day, turning what used to be a simple departure into something that requires strategy and endurance.
There are also subtle operational changes happening behind the scenes. Fewer screening lanes are open. Some airports have stopped providing accurate wait-time estimates because conditions shift too quickly to measure. Even seasoned travelers, the ones who pride themselves on efficiency and timing, are finding themselves caught off guard.
And then there is the human side of it all.
TSA officers, often the quiet background figures in the travel experience, are now at its center. Many are under financial strain, working long hours without a paycheck. Travelers, sensing this, sometimes respond with empathy, sometimes with frustration, depending on how their own journey is going that day.
It creates a strange, shared tension in those security lines. Everyone is waiting. Everyone is affected. No one quite knows how long it will take.
What makes this time particularly challenging is that it’s happening during a busy travel period. Spring break crowds are filling airports, adding to the volume on a system already stretched thin. Under normal circumstances, that surge would be manageable. Now, it feels like too much weight on an already fragile system.
And yet, travel continues.
Planes still take off. People still arrive at their destinations. Vacations begin, reunions happen, and business trips move forward. But the journey to get there has become heavier, less certain, and more emotionally charged than it used to be.
If there’s one thing travelers are learning right now, it’s patience, not by choice, but by necessity.
Standing in those long lines, inching forward, watching the clock, you begin to understand that travel is no longer just about where you’re going. It’s about what it takes to get there, and lately, that first step through security has become the hardest part of all.
For now, we can take a deep breath, knowing we won’t be stepping into that uncertainty just yet. Our next US flight isn’t until June, when we depart from Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport for Kruger Mpumalanga International Airport. It feels far enough away to hope that the current challenges will be settled, that the long lines and uneasy waiting will ease back into the familiar. Travel always carries its unknowns, but this time, we’re wishing for a smoother start to that long journey ahead.
Please plan ahead, dear readers, when flying in the US!
Be well.
Photo from ten years ago today, March 25, 2016:
