How to find out the waiting time at the airports most affected by the shatdaun

The partial closure of the government, which has lasted for more than three weeks and is officially considered the longest shuttling in US history, has led to significant delays in passing control at several major US airports, as employees of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) massively ask for work or even quit their jobs. wanting to work without pay. One lounge at Miami International Airport was closed at the weekend, and one checkpoint at George Bush Houston Airport was closed on January 15, while passengers at the Atlanta airport on Monday waited for their turn to pass security checks for over an hour.

Edition Time collected data on delays at checkpoints at airports due to the shatdaun, and also told how to get up-to-date information on how long you have to wait in line for passing control.

The TSA said that the proportion of workers who did not return to work on Monday, January 14, was more than two times higher than usual.

“TSA nationally had 6,8% unscheduled absences, up from 2,5% a year ago,” the agency said.

The average waiting time for US airport checkpoints across the country is about 15 minutes. But TSA data shows that some airports significantly exceeded this average on Monday: the maximum waiting time on regular TSA checkpoint lines was 28 minutes in Miami, 29 minutes in Honolulu, 41 minutes in Dallas Love and Atlanta's whopping 88 minutes .

However, the TSA said wait times Monday were within their normal range nationwide: “Overall, 99,1% of passengers waited less than 30 minutes; 94,3% of passengers - less than 15 minutes."

So i'm at @ATLairport I have ever seen. Even growing up here, and even for a Monday morning. I’ve still been told about 30 minutes to go. pic.twitter.com/UL7EghujQI

- Omar Jimenez (@OmarJimenez) January 14, 2019

However, most travelers do not care about average waiting times in the country or waiting times on previous days. They want to know how long they will have to wait at a particular airport, which they use during their journey. To obtain this information, TSA recommends that travelers download and use the official MyTSA application, which provides estimates of waiting times at security checkpoints at airports throughout the country.

But the data of this application is far from perfect. The estimated waiting time at the airport, reported by the MyTSA application, is crowdsourced. In other words, information comes from travelers at airports, telling how long they waited at the checkpoint. Thus, these ratings deserve the same confidence as the reviews on social networks.

“App wait times are based on crowdsourced data provided by passengers and we cannot guarantee its accuracy,” the TSA warns.

One of the problems is that travelers do not enter the waiting time in the application as often as necessary for the accuracy and relevance of the information. For example, at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta, which is the busiest airport in the US, near 10: 00 on Tuesday, the MyTSA app showed that one traveler (one!) Reported that the waiting time at the checkpoint was from 21 up to 30 minutes. For the next few hours, no other passengers were allowed to leave.

The MyTSA application also offers statistics indicating that Atlanta’s standard latency on Tuesday is usually less than 15 minutes. But historical statistics are not particularly useful for travelers forced to cope with unprecedented situations, such as shatdown and low turnout for TSA employees.

But there are other ways to obtain data on waiting times at the airport. For example, the websites of many US airports publish their estimated waiting times and update this information throughout the day in real time.

Estimated waiting times at airport sites are often more detailed and useful than what is available in the MyTSA application.

However, not all airports list wait times at TSA checkpoints on their website. So, another type of resource travelers should consider is a third-party app that provides estimated airport wait times. Options for such programs include MiFlight and FlightSpeak, although they also collect data through crowdsourcing, which can also cause inaccuracies.

It is also worth checking for updates in the airport social network accounts, which can also indicate the approximate waiting time.

Read also on ForumDaily:

Officials across America massively turn to food banks for food

Parks, museums, airports: what works and what is closed during the shatdaun

Federal employees do not know how to pay bills, and are afraid of prolonged shatdaun

Because of the shatdaun millions of Americans can be left without food stamps and benefits

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