Lines at Sea-Tac stretch into garage as TSA grapples with staff shortage, airport says

The travel industry took a major hit during the worst months of the COVID-19 pandemic, and as fewer people took flights, travelers got used to shorter wait times.

Recently though, business has really picked up at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, so much so that lines for Transportation Security Adminstration checkpoints have stretched as far as the parking garage, Perry Cooper, a spokesman for the airport, told McClatchy News.

“We’ve had three days in the last week and a half going back to Monday [April 5] and then this last weekend — Saturday and Sunday — we had situations where we had waits that were into the garage and over 60 minutes,” Cooper said in the phone interview.

While the weekly average number of travelers passing through the airport is still far below what it was before COVID, there has been a sharp increase from this time last year. The number of travelers screened at Sea-Tac the week of April 4 was 34,700, which is an 828% more than the same week in 2020, according to the Port of Seattle.

The numbers are up nationally as well. On Sunday, for example, 1,561,495 travelers passed through TSA checkpoints in airports, compared to 90,510 in 2020. That’s still down significantly from 2019, when 2,446,801 travelers went through checkpoints.

At Sea-Tac, there are a few reasons for the congestion, Cooper said. First, the airport is still encouraging physical distancing by closing every other “queue line,” which reduces the capacity by 75%, according to Cooper.

“This is actually a struggle we had pre-pandemic because we were growing so fast,” Cooper said.

TSA’s hiring troubles are also partly to blame for long waits, according to Cooper.

“With [its] staffing challenges we have not been able to open up as many lanes … so that’s basically the funnel,” he said. “Only so many people can through that funnel.”

The TSA came under fire during the pandemic after employees called out “lax safety measures” that put workers at risk, The New York Times reported. Since the beginning of the pandemic, nearly 7,200 TSA employees have tested positive for COVID-19 and 15 have died, according to the agency.

As was the case before COVID, spring breakers are also adding to the traffic but “this is typically about the last week of it,” according to Cooper.

“It’s usually a month-long period between mid-March and mid-April and it usually coincides with the university and school districts being out,” he said.

Cooper said getting to the airport an hour before your flight isn’t going to cut it as people become more comfortable with traveling. It’s recommended to arrive two hours before a domestic flight and three hours before an international flight.

This story was originally published April 13, 2021 at 5:27 PM with the headline "Lines at Sea-Tac stretch into garage as TSA grapples with staff shortage, airport says."