Spring Break is a time for traveling, beach trips or just 10 days of lying on the couch and doing absolutely nothing. What would normally be an eagerly anticipated vacation has been interrupted by one of the most aggravating interruptions: long airport wait times.
Due to the partial government shutdown and the consequent lapse of funding for the Department of Homeland Security, there have been large amounts of staffing shortages within the Transportation Safety Administration (TSA).
“I feel like the longer it goes on, the more TSA agents are not going to be showing up because, you know, if you need a paycheck to live and survive and you’re not getting that, you’ve got to go somewhere else,” said Liam McElhannon, senior.
But what does this mean for the thousands of spring breakers taking to the airports? Well, it could mean having to arrive at the airport hours before their flight and waiting in TSA lines that wrap around the building. In comparison, smaller airports like Raleigh’s own RDU may not feel the understaffing as much as larger airports like Denver, Dallas-Fort Worth, or LaGuardia are struggling. The latter recently saw a deadly plane crash due to an Air Canada jet colliding with a firetruck, an event that has become a grim symbol of the overworked and understaffed aviation system.
“I’ve been at the airport in Miami, and that was before I got TSA pre-check. I spent two and a half hours in the line to RDU, flying back, but that was during the last shutdown,” said McElhannon.
While TSA and Air Traffic Control fall under two different departments, the LaGuardia crash has many people wondering if the “saving” of government funding is worth passenger safety. While not directly related to the DHS shutdown, it’s widely used as an example of the systemic staffing crisis in aviation.
“I think there’s a lot of concerns when it comes to air travel overall. I know over the past two years, my fiance and I have had some more thoughtful conversations around our need to fly.” said Emma Stoltz, Athens social studies teacher. “Not that we were ever nervous flyers by any means, it was more of just the understanding and the recognizing of the short staffing around all aspects of flight and travel, whether it’s air traffic control or it’s TSA.”
TSA agents are about to miss their second full paycheck. As of late March, over 450 agents have resigned, and combined with some airports having reported up to 40% in absentee rates, this means that wait times will be at an all-time high. Many workers are being forced to take second jobs, yet are still required to come into work, as TSA agents are considered essential workers.
“With [the] government shutdown, if they’re not getting paid, well, obviously I wouldn’t show up if I wasn’t getting paid,” said McElhannon.
The shutdown could not have been at a worse time, and as the DHS reaches its sixth week without pay, the Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy warns that times will continue to get worse unless Congress can find a resolution to their standoff on immigration enforcement policies – the cause of this current partial shutdown.
But until that happens, the spring break vibe of relaxation and vacationing will be put on hold until anyone can make it past the security gate. For now, the best packing advice isn’t sunscreen or a travel catalog, but a portable charger and a whole lot of patience.
“[I just want to say] thank you to the TSA agent for working while you’re not getting paid,” said Stoltz, “I would love to say that I would be a fantastic person and do the same thing, but I don’t know if I could say that I would do that job and not get paid.”
