HOUSTON (AP) \u2014 George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston has become the symbol for how the ongoing partial government shutdown has wreaked havoc on the nation\u2019s air travel system.<\/p>\n
While long security lines have hobbled airports across the U.S., Bush Intercontinental\u2019s problems have been more pronounced. Frustrated travelers at Houston\u2019s largest airport have confronted warnings of four-hour wait times to get through security, as many Transportation Security Administration workers aren\u2019t showing up for their shifts since they\u2019re not getting paid during the shutdown.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd we\u2019ve been in this airport since 8 o\u2019clock in the morning. Very tired, queuing and queuing and very slow,\u201d Edgaer Fernando, who was traveling to Guatemala, said on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Union and airport officials have offered a variety of reasons why Bush Intercontinental seems to be worse than other airports.<\/p>\n
These include the Houston airport having one of the highest callout rates of TSA workers in the country due to the economic challenges they are facing, higher passenger traffic as the airport is a major hub for United Airlines, and a busy tourism month for Houston.<\/p>\n
More TSA workers in Houston are not coming to work compared to other cities<\/strong><\/p>\n Both Bush Intercontinental and Hobby, the city\u2019s other major airport, have had some of the highest callout rates in the U.S.<\/p>\n While 11% of TSA workers nationally did not show up for work on Tuesday, at Bush Intercontinental, that number was nearly 40%. At Hobby, it was even higher \u2014 43%. The callout rate in Houston has averaged between 35% and 40%, said Johnny Jones, the secretary and treasurer for Council 100 of the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents TSA workers nationwide.<\/p>\n But Bush Intercontinental is much busier than Hobby, having served over 48.4 million passengers in 2024, compared to 14.6 million passengers at Hobby.<\/p>\n Jim Szczesniak, director of aviation for the Houston Airport System, said that at Bush Intercontinental, 37 TSA checkpoint lanes are usually operating. Only between a third and 50% of lanes are currently being operated, he said.<\/p>\n \u201cWe worry conditions will only get worse at airports across the U.S. until Congress ends this shutdown,\u201d Szczesniak said in a video posted on social media Tuesday.<\/p>\n TSA workers were already dealing with financial difficulties and debt from last year\u2019s shutdown, and with higher costs for groceries and gas, employees \u201care just tired of it,” Jones said.<\/p>\n \u201cThere could be a million factors, but I can just tell you as simple as this: If everybody\u2019s being paid, you wouldn\u2019t have no lines,\u201d Jones said. The Houston airport is one of the nation\u2019s busiest and is also a major hub for United Airlines. Of the 48.4 million passengers that went through the airport in 2024, 34.8 million were from United Airlines.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s high call outs, but it\u2019s also the excessive origination point for a lot of flights,\u201d Jones said.<\/p>\n With the high volume of passengers, the Houston airport might have also been experiencing a staffing shortage even before the shutdown, as no TSA workers have been hired around the country in about a year, Jones said.<\/p>\n March has been a busy month for Houston<\/strong><\/p>\n Besides spring break travelers, Houston has hosted a variety of high-profile events this month.<\/p>\n These include games during the World Baseball Classic and CERAWeek, a major energy conference with more than 10,000 participants from around the world. The Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo reportedly drew 2.6 million attendees, many from outside the metro area, during its three-week duration. And this week, two of the NCAA Tournament\u2019s Sweet 16 games will be played in Houston.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile the delays are frustrating for travelers, they do not appear to be impacting tourism. In fact, Houston is experiencing the strongest month of March in terms of hotel rooms and reservations in the city\u2019s history,\u201d Mayor John Whitmire said in a statement.<\/p>\n Wait times at Bush Intercontinental seemed to improve on Wednesday as it took less than two hours to get through TSA security.<\/p>\n \u201cEveryone\u2019s trying their best. And thanks to all the TSA members who are here,\u201d Raj Chauhan, who was traveling to Miami, said on Wednesday.<\/p>\n __<\/p>\n Follow Juan A. Lozano: https:\/\/x.com\/juanlozano70<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" HOUSTON (AP) \u2014 George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston has become the symbol for how the ongoing partial government shutdown has wreaked havoc on the nation\u2019s air travel system. While long security lines have hobbled airports across the U.S., Bush Intercontinental\u2019s problems have been more pronounced. Frustrated travelers at Houston\u2019s largest airport have confronted warnings … Continue reading Houston airport has become a symbol for the shutdown’s impacts on air travel<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2851],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1491162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-state-news-archive"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-06 16:20:24","action":"change-status","newStatus":"trash","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1491162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1491162"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1491162\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1492147,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1491162\/revisions\/1492147"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1491162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1491162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1491162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nBush Intercontinental is among the nation\u2019s largest hub airports<\/p>\n