Houston airport has become a symbol for the shutdown’s impacts on air travel
Passengers wait in a security checkpoint line at George Bush Intercontinental Airport Wednesday, March 25, 2026, in Houston. (AP Photo/David J.
Phillip) 2026-03-25T23:33:54Z HOUSTON (AP) — George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston has become the symbol for how the ongoing partial government shutdown has wreaked havoc on the nation’s air travel system .
While long security lines have hobbled airports across the U.S., Bush Intercontinental’s problems have been more pronounced.
Frustrated travelers at Houston’s largest airport have confronted warnings of four-hour wait times to get through security, as many Transportation Security Administration workers aren’t showing up for their shifts since they’re not getting paid during the shutdown. “And we’ve been in this airport since 8 o’clock in the morning.
Very tired, queuing and queuing and very slow,” Edgaer Fernando, who was traveling to Guatemala, said on Tuesday.
Union and airport officials have offered a variety of reasons why Bush Intercontinental seems to be worse than other airports.
These include the Houston airport having one of the highest callout rates of TSA workers in the country due to the economic challenges they are facing, higher passenger traffic as the airport is a major hub for United Airlines, and a busy tourism month for Houston.
More TSA workers in Houston are not coming to work compared to other cities Both Bush Intercontinental and Hobby, the city’s other major airport, have had some of the highest callout rates in the U.S.
While 11% of TSA workers nationally did not show up for work on Tuesday, at Bush Intercontinental, that number was nearly 40%.
At Hobby, it was even higher — 43%.
The callout rate in Houston has averaged between 35% and 40%, said Johnny Jones, the secretary and treasurer for Council 100 of the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents TSA workers nationwide.
But Bush Intercontinental is much busier than Hobby, having served over 48.4 million passengers in 2024, compared to 14.6 million passengers at Hobby.
Jim Szczesniak, director of aviation for the Houston Airport System, said that at Bush Intercontinental, 37 TSA checkpoint lanes are usually operating.
Only between a third and 50% of lanes are currently being operated, he said. “We worry conditions will only get worse at airports across the U.S. until Congress ends this shutdown,” Szczesniak said in a video posted on social media Tuesday.
TSA workers were already dealing with
原文链接: AP News