Travel disruptions continued Tuesday in the U.S. as airlines tried to recover from a powerful storm system that already snarled flight schedules a day earlier and left airports dealing with longer security lines during a partial federal shutdown. The disruptions unfolded as spring break travel and fans heading to March Madness added to crowds at major hubs, according to the report.
Flight-tracking data cited by the Associated Press showed that carriers canceled more than 1,100 U.S. flights on Tuesday and delayed about 7,300 others. The same figures showed Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport had over 230 cancellations and roughly 770 delays during the day.
The outages followed a chaotic Monday for air travel, triggered by the same storms that dumped snow in the Midwest and moved through the eastern half of the country. The National Weather Service reported that gusts approached 50 mph (80 kph) in parts of New York, according to the report.
The storms came while the partial government shutdown, which began Feb. 14, continued to affect TSA screening operations under the Department of Homeland Security. The shutdown has thinned staffing at some security checkpoints at times, contributing to longer lines, the report said, and the airport pressure also reflected the influx of spring break travelers and March Madness crowds.
In Atlanta, a traveler who was trying to get home to Colorado after a family vacation in Orlando, Florida, described the disruption as particularly drawn out. Kelly Price said her Sunday night flight wasn’t canceled until early Monday and that, by then, “the only place for us to sleep was the airport floor,” adding that the soonest flight she and her family could book did not leave until Tuesday afternoon.
On Monday alone, the Associated Press reported, more than 4,800 U.S. flights were canceled and delays topped 12,800. The figures included about 600 canceled flights at Chicago O’Hare International Airport, more than 500 at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson and roughly 450 at New York’s LaGuardia Airport, according to FlightAware, while the Federal Aviation Administration issued ground stops and delays at several major airports as conditions worsened.
The report also described the shutdown’s ongoing effect on TSA staffing as additional pressure for airports. It said the shutdown affects only the Department of Homeland Security, which includes TSA, and noted that Democrats in Congress have said Homeland Security won’t get funded until new restrictions are placed on federal immigration operations following the fatal shootings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good in Minneapolis earlier this year.
The AP said Homeland Security has reported that more than 300 TSA agents have quit since the shutdown began. It also cited union complaints and local accounts that some workers are coping with financial strain even as they keep showing up for shifts, including remarks attributed to Aaron Barker, a local leader with the American Federation of Government Employees.
As staffing constraints worsened, some airports made operational changes to screening. The report said TSA closed multiple security checkpoints at Philadelphia’s airport starting Wednesday, with airport staff guiding travelers to alternate checkpoints, and the airport recommended arriving 2.5 hours early for domestic flights and 3.5 hours early for international flights. Heather Redfern, a spokesperson for the city’s aviation department, was quoted as saying the staffing constraints caused the closures, and the report said TSA did close some Philadelphia checkpoints during a previous government shutdown last year.
The AP also reported on warnings that more checkpoint closures could follow if staffing continues to deteriorate. It cited Adam Stahl, the agency’s acting deputy administrator, saying on the TV program “Fox & Friends” that smaller airports may need to close if the rate of TSA employees not reporting to work continues to rise, while elsewhere in Atlanta, Mel Stewart and his wife arrived four hours earlier than usual for their flight out of Hartsfield-Jackson to account for longer TSA lines.