As you’ve probably heard – or maybe even dealt with yourself – some U.S. airports have been experiencing historic TSA wait times as of late amid the Department of Homeland Security shutdown.
But, even with March 28 being a “peak travel” day for Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport, an airport spokesperson said it was “not currently experiencing any unusual wait times” on Saturday afternoon.
“I can share that we are not currently experiencing any unusual wait times at the present time,” Harold Mester, the director of public affairs & marketing for Mitchell Airport, told the Journal Sentinel in an email just before 3:30 p.m.
With it being spring break season, the Milwaukee airport is expecting around 12,000 departing and 12,000 arriving passengers on each of its “peak travel days,” which are March 27-28 and April 3-4, according to Mester.
During the partial government shutdown, the Transportation Security Administration has been without funding and its employees have been working without pay.
According to a statement provided to the Journal Sentinel by TSA Public Affairs – which was attributed to a DHS spokesperson – TSA employees have gone more than 40 days without a paycheck.
“During this time, over 500 officers have quit, and thousands more have been forced to call out because they can’t afford basic necessities like gas, childcare, food, or rent,” the statement said.
TSA Public Affairs was unable to provide Milwaukee-specific data due to “limited staffing.”
On March 27, over 3,560 TSA officers nationwide called out, according to the agency. That’s a 12.35% call-out rate, the highest of the partial shutdown, the agency said.
At some airports, this has resulted in security lines stretching outside some terminals as passengers wait hours in some cases.
On Friday, March 27, President Donald Trump signed an order to pay TSA personnel by declaring an “unprecedented emergency situation.”
The White House said it will “use funds that have a reasonable and logical nexus to TSA operations to provide TSA employees with the compensation and benefits that would have accrued to them” if not for the DHS shutdown.
“At the direction of President Trump and the Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin, TSA has immediately begun the process of paying its workforce,” the statement from TSA Public Affairs said.
TSA officers should begin seeing paychecks as early as Monday, March 30, according to the statement.
The ongoing DHS shutdown, however, is far from over – and could even drag on until mid-April, USA Today reported on March 28.
Here’s the latest.
USA Today contributed to this report.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Amid DHS shutdown, no unusual wait times at Milwaukee Mitchell airport
Reporting by Hannah Kirby, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
