In early May, as long TSA screening lines were starting to make daily national news, the peak wait time at Chicago O’Hare airport hit 104 minutes, according to the Chicago Department of Aviation.
By the second half of July, however, the peak wait times at O’Hare, the nation’s second busiest airport, had dropped to just eight minutes. Meanwhile, average wait-times at lines at O’Hare dropped from 15 minutes to just two minutes during that same time span.
What’s more, the significant, rapid improvement at O’Hare was largely echoed across the country after public outrage and concerns about the impact security lines would have on the summer travel season forced quick action not only by Congress and the TSA but also by airlines and airports.
Indeed, while waits of an hour were relatively common in May, the TSA now says the average wait time nationwide is less than 10 minutes.
In mid-July, Department of Homeland Security secretary Jeh Johnson stated that more than 90% of the public was waiting in lines for less than 15 minutes. That same month, the TSA asserted on its website that 97% of TSA PreCheck-enrolled passengers were facing queue times of less than five minutes.
«It has truly been a collaborative effort between the airports, TSA and the airlines,» said Christopher Bidwell, vice president for security at the trade group Airports Council International — North America.
The TSA, with the help of other industry officials, stunted the long lines, in part, due to an assist from Congress. Legislators enabled the TSA to shift $62 million within the existing 2016 fiscal year budget in order to increase the number of TSA agents at airports. As a result, the agency was able to hire 768 officers by mid-June and to increase overtime. In addition, the TSA converted 2,784 agents from part-time to full-time at the nation’s 20 busiest airports, with 600 more officers still to be hired.
The agency also stepped up efforts to enroll people in PreCheck, which now has more than 3 million members, shifted resources strategically and added canine teams…
