TSA resignations and call-outs show no signs of letting up, the agency’s interim leader said on Wednesday.
Ha Nguyen McNeill, acting administrator of the TSA, told the U.S. House Committee on Homeland Security that over 480 officers have quit since the partial government shutdown began last month. Absence rates, she said, have shot up from a nationwide average of 4% to between 40% and 50% at some major airports because agents there “simply cannot afford to report to work.”
“We are being forced to consolidate lanes and may have to close smaller airports if we do not have enough officers,” McNeill said. “It is a fluid, challenging, and unpredictable situation.”
McNeill did not name any specific airports that could be targeted for temporary closure. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy issued a similar warning about airport closures last week.
TSA workers missed a partial paycheck in February and a full paycheck earlier this month. They are set to miss another by the end of this week unless Congress can work out a deal that restores funding to the Department of Homeland Security, which TSA operates under.
Travelers at some airports have faced security wait times of over four and a half hours, which McNeill said are the highest in the TSA’s history. Among the hardest hit are Atlanta, Houston Bush, Houston Hobby, New York-JFK, and New Orleans.
Wait times tend to surge before and over the weekend, as spring break travel picks up, before easing somewhat midweek.
The White House ordered Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents into at least 14 major airports around the country starting Monday to assist TSA staff. McNeill said Wednesday that ICE agents are helping direct crowds, giving passengers instructions on how to load their bins, and operating document checking machines.
Rep. LaMonica McIver of New Jersey asked McNeill how ICE agents could have been trained so quickly, noting that the standard training time for a new TSA agent is about six months. She said she made calls to Newark Liberty International Airport and was told that ICE agents were simply “standing in the lobby area” with airport police.
McNeill said it takes some time to get new people “embedded into our operations” but that in general the process was going “extremely well.”
