Thanksgiving travelers face different wait-times at different airports

As the busy Thanksgiving air travel weekend looms, passengers should be mindful of the fact that waiting in security check up lines is going to be longer this year. At half the U.S. fifty busiest airports, the lines to reach a security checkpoint were longer during last Thanksgiving weekend’s peak travel times than they were in 2004, according to a Gannett News Service analysis of federal data collected over the past three years. The busiest airports are not necessarily those where travelers spent the longest time waiting to be screened. At Rochester International Airport in Minnesota, for example, travelers waited an average 31.4 minutes last Thanksgiving. This was twenty minutes longer than the year before, according to data collected by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). At the airport in Cortez, Colorado, the presecurity wait over the 2006 Thanksgiving weekend was twenty-eight minutes, the data showed. Overall, though, people who flew out of smaller airports during the last three Thanksgiving holiday weekends waited an average of seven to eight minutes. This compares with an average wait time of nearly twelve minutes at the nation’s fifty busiest airports.

Among the busiest airports — those in the Top 10 for passenger traffic — McCarran International in Las Vegas, Hartsfield Atlanta International, and Phoenix Sky Harbor airports had the longest wait times, between 14 and 15 minutes. The figures represent only the time it takes to get to a security checkpoint. They do not include the time it takes to get screened by TSA workers or other time-consuming waits, such as the line to check in and pick up a boarding pass. TSA officials measure wait times regularly — sometimes hourly — to make sure security check points are properly staffed. The agency likes to keep wait times to less than twelve minutes, but a number of factors can make that a challenge. “One day of bad weather can spill over into the next,” said Amy Kudwa, spokeswoman for DHS, which oversees the TSA. “If a lot of passengers have to stay in hotels, they flood back in the next day.” Officials at large airports with comparatively long security-related wait times say the soaring volume of airline passengers and the chaos that comes with every holiday weekend is more than some airports can handle. Among the nation’s fifty busiest airports, John Wayne airport in Santa Anna, California, had the longest average peak wait time last Thanksgiving, at more than twenty minutes. The San Jose and Oakland airports, also in California, were close behind, with peak wait times averaging about nineteen minutes. Next were the airports in Miami, Newark, and Philadelphia, with waits between sixteen and nineteen minutes.

Busy airports that were most improved, when comparing 2004 with 2006, included Fort Lauderdale International Airport in Florida, which reduced wait times from more than twenty-four minutes in 2004 to less than ten minutes in 2006. Palm Beach International Airport improved from more than twenty minutes to less than seven. Los Angeles International reduced wait times from just under twenty minutes to just under eight minutes.