Passenger frustration with hours-long lines to get through TSA airport security checkpoints is being taken out on unpaid Transportation Security Officers who are still showing up for work, it has been revealed.
Assaults on TSA workers since the start of the partial government shutdown on February 14 have surged by around 500%, shocking new figures show.
One of the worst-affected airports is Houston George Bush Intercontinental (IAH), where officials warned wait times could exceed four hours on Thursday despite the deployment of ICE agents meant to keep checkpoint lines running smoothly.
In a statement, a spokesperson for the Houston Airport System, which manages both IAH and Houston Hobby, warned that the relief witnessed on Wednesday in the form of shorter lines would be short-lived and that significantly higher passenger traffic was expected into the weekend.
On March 24, around 39% of TSA officers scheduled to work at Houston Intercontinental called out sick, while Houston Hobby saw a call-out rate of 43%.
Other badly affected airports included New York JFK (36.8%), Atlanta Hartsfield (36.6%), New Orleans (35.6%), and Baltimore (28.1%). Overall, the average TSA call-out rate across the country is holding steady at around 11%.
Since the start of the funding crisis, around 500 TSA officers have quit, and aviation experts now fear this long-running fiasco could have major repercussions on officer hiring well into the future.
“Congress created this chaos for air travelers, and Congress put this excessive strain on TSA officers unnecessarily,” slammed Chris Sununu, the chief executive of Airlines 4 America, a lobby group that represents some of the biggest airlines in the United States, including American Airlines, Delta, and United.
“It’s simply unacceptable that some TSA employees—who work for the United States government—are relying on gift cards to buy groceries and sleeping in their cars because they can’t afford gas to get to work,” Sununu added.
Airlines 4 America is demanding that lawmakers reach a bipartisan deal to immediately restore funding to the TSA, although the blame game between Democrats and Republicans continues unabated.
The Trump administration has labeled the crisis the ‘Democrat Shutdown’ over the party’s filibustering of a full appropriations package for the Department of Homeland Security.
Democrats, however, say they have repeatedly put legislation forward to immediately restore funding to the TSA, arguing that a deal for ICE can be worked out at a later date.
While lawmakers bicker, TSA officers continue to go unpaid. They will miss their second full paycheck on Friday, with the total outstanding pay bill now standing at more than $1 billion.
Last weekend, the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, offered to pay TSA officers for the duration of the shutdown. The White House later rejected Musk’s offer.
