Airline Anxiety

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The Morning

Airline Anxiety

We look at why flying right now is awful.

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By

Sam Sifton

I am the host of The Morning.

March 25, 2026,

6:41 a.m. ET

It is a terrible time to fly. Long lines are plaguing many U.S. airports because of a shortage of Transportation Security Administration screeners. They have been working without pay for more than a month during a partial government shutdown. And travel season is ramping up as families head off for spring break.

Seeking to end the congressional standoff over funding the Department of Homeland Security, Senate Republicans yesterday considered a compromise that would reopen the agency but withhold money for immigration operations that Democrats refuse to fund. It was unclear whether Senate Democrats would go along. Their leader, Chuck Schumer, wanted more concessions. (

Read about the latest negotiations here

.)

The lines

For travelers, a deal can’t come soon enough. More than 400 T.S.A. officers have quit since the shutdown, according to Homeland Security. Others have taken on second jobs and called out of work in order to perform them. The result at large airports like those in Atlanta and New York has been hourslong lines to get through security, even for travelers with specialty clearances like T.S.A. PreCheck or Clear, and stacks of missed flights.

How bad are the waits? In yesterday’s newsletter, we asked readers to share their stories. Hundreds of you obliged. Here are a couple of anecdotes:

We missed our connecting flight in Atlanta because of long lines on Saturday. We saw visibly tired T.S.A. agents, some saying that they wouldn’t come to work the next day. When travelers at risk of missing their flight started asking those in front of them for permission to move ahead, someone called T.S.A. officers, who escorted the fliers to the back of the line. One of them wept. We watched passengers arguing about the line-cutters and saw officers intervene to stop a fight. We slept in the airport to make our flight the next morning. |

Natalia Rojas Cerf | Austin, Texas

We returned from Puerto Rico Sunday, and the experience was brutal. Two of three terminals were closed, and various lines (check-in, baggage drop, security) snaked confusingly through the building and into the street. Travelers stood for more than four hours in lines under tents in the rain. Many people missed their flights. Staff were often just as confused as travelers about where to go and what lines were for. |

Dawnrae Oliveira | Hinsdale, Massachusetts

Image

Note: Times are for general security lines.

Credit...

Zach Levitt and Elena Shao/The New York Times

Taken together, though, the responses paint a nuanced picture. Several readers shared stories of normalcy, even bonhomie:

I flew out of Denver at the start of spring break and was surprised by the ease of security. There were long lines that moved very quickly, T.S.A. agents were friendly and kind, even joking, and travelers were generally positive and respectful. The airline clubs were packed, presumably with travelers arriving early just in case. |

Cait Murphy | Denver, Colorado

Oil, immigration, prices

Wait times aren’t the only irregularity for travelers. President Trump deployed immigration agents to airports this week to help manage the lines. Democratic lawmakers and the union representing T.S.A. officers

called the deployment disruptive

— ICE agents freak some Americans out. (Others shake their hands.) Over the weekend, T.S.A. tipped off ICE about the travel plans of a woman and her 9-year-old daughter,

leading to their deportation

.

And then there are

the ramifications of a foreign war

. Ticket prices are climbing as the Iran conflict brings shortages of jet fuel across Asia. Airlines have canceled tens of thousands of flights in the Middle East as governments have closed airports and restricted flight paths across the region. Demand for tickets is ebbing. “We’re seeing

a perfect storm of travel disruption

right now,” one travel expert told The Times.

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