January 17, 2018 – In Breaking News – The Washington Post

Faced with growing numbers of call-outs by its workers — and images of some of them lining up for food donations — leaders of the Transportation Security Administration acknowledged Wednesday that “many employees are reporting that they are not able to report to work due to financial limitations.”

Significant numbers of TSA agents have not been coming to work, either because of financial hardship or to underscore their opposition to being forced to work without pay.

And the agency said the call-outs are rising.

(One place to see the impact of the partial government shutdown is at the airport where some TSA workers, who are not being paid, are not showing up. The TSA reports 137 percent more sick calls Monday compared to a year ago. Staff shortages led to long lines at some airports including the world’s busiest in Atlanta. Courtesy of CBS This Morning and YouTube. Posted on Jan 15, 2019.)

TSA officials would not provide specific employee totals, citing security concerns.

But “the number of people calling out because of financial concerns is increasing,” said Michael Bilello, TSA’s assistant administrator for public affairs.

“We’re certainly not in denial that as we go further and further away from having a missed paycheck and going into unknowns, it’s going to start to affect people.”

“And people will have to make a decision: ‘Can I afford to go to work today?’ ” Bilello added.

“People aren’t just pretending to be sick. … What we’re hearing from the workforce is the increasing reason they’re calling out is, financially, they can no longer make it to work.”

Numbers from the agency, covering Tuesday, show 6.1 percent of employees did not come to work.

That’s nearly 1 out of every 16 workers, and a 65 percent jump in call-outs from the year before.

(The government shutdown is hitting the nation’s airports hard. Staffing shortages have led the TSA to close some checkpoints and passengers are waiting in hours-long security lines. Courtesy of TODAY and YouTube. Posted on Jan 15, 2019.)

TSA said the call-outs have forced three major airports — Atlanta, Houston and Miami — to operate under contingency plans meant to address various disruptions.

In this case, the disruption is the partial shutdown over President Trump’s push for billions of dollars to build a border wall.

Continue reading… TSA acknowledges financial stress of shutdown is forcing growing number of officers to stay home

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(FBN’s Dagen McDowell on the impact of the partial government shutdown on airports across the country. Courtesy of Fox Business News and YouTube. Posted on Jan 15, 2019.)

TSA Statement on Checkpoint Operations for January 17

Nationwide, the Transportation Security Administration screened 1.79 million passengers yesterday (Wednesday, Jan. 16).

Overall, 99.9 percent of passengers waited less than 30 minutes and 95.4 percent of passengers waited less than 15 minutes.

In TSA Pre✓® lanes, passengers on average waited less than 10 minutes.

Please refer to the table below for top airport specific wait times.

Yesterday’s complete figures show that TSA experienced a national rate of 6.1 percent of unscheduled absences compared to a 5 percent rate one year ago on the same day, Wednesday, January 17, 2018; many employees are reporting that they are not able to report to work due to financial limitations.

While national average wait times are within normal TSA times of 30 minutes for standard lanes and 10 minutes for TSA Pre✓®, some airports experienced longer than usual wait times.

Below are yesterday’s maximum wait times experienced by passengers in standard and TSA Pre✓® lanes at the top 42 U.S. airports.

The MyTSA app provides passengers with 24/7 access to airport security information on any mobile device.

Find out which items you can bring with you through the checkpoint, see weather conditions at your favorite airports, request live assistance from AskTSA, and much more!

To download, visit www.tsa.gov/mobile