Image courtesy of CNN
Written by: M’Kiyah Jordan
Lincoln University, PA—If you’re active on social media, you may or may not have seen the videos about insanely long TSA lines, flights being canceled, and people being stuck at the airports for hours. Right now, the advice is if you plan on traveling, ‘don’t’. But why is that?
Although it’s not every airport in America that’s having these problems, all airports have been affected. The TSA problem comes from the Department of Homeland Security being shut down. Some TSA workers are working without pay, causing some to either quit or call out. This is resulting in extremely long lines and wait times due to the limit on the number of employees to run security smoothly.
Lack of staff isn’t just in the TSA; there are not enough traffic controllers, and the staff they do have are overworked. There is also bad weather to be considered. A huge storm hit the United States and resulted in around 3000 canceled and delayed flights. So the weather, in addition to the staffing issues, is causing pure chaos.
All over the world, airports are working to try to fix these issues, but there are still conflicts. The LaGuardia Airport recently had a serious crash on March 22, 2026. A plane collided with a vehicle on the runway, and the entire airport had to be temporarily shut down. This resulted in flights having to be rerouted to New York, which affected airports and flights everywhere.
Everything that could go wrong with airports is going wrong. Unfortunately, that means to show up at least 4 hours early, be prepared, and be kind to the airport staff and workers!
They’re trying their best.
