WARNING: Video contains adult language that may not be suitable for all viewers.
Get to the airport early and prepare to wait.
Facing hours-long Transportation Security Administration checkpoint lines at U.S. airports this week, travelers are snapping pictures and uploading videos to document the mess.
“Never seen a security line this long at LaGuardia – what’s going on @united and @NY_NJairports ?? #hatethewait,” tweeted @LisaAkey on Friday morning.
Kym Jones waited in line for two hours Friday at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport.
“This line starts at the sliding departure doors by check in, zig zags through the baggage claim belts, though the lobby and finally to TSA,” Jones Tweeted.
She said she only made her flight because a TSA officer told her to go to the international terminal, which had a much shorter security line.
“The security line at #Atlanta #HartsfieldJackson is insane,” tweeted @JohnFricke on Thursday. “Starts in baggage claim!”
The Atlanta airport closed down one of its security lines last week to install new equipment for an expedited screening process that’s scheduled to go into testing later this month.
By midmorning Friday, Atlanta’s snarled, serpentine security lines had dissipated and passengers were moving through checkpoints, CNN staffers there reported.
#iHateTheWait
Airlines for America, an airline industry group, is asking fliers to take photos of those long security lines and post them to social media with the hashtag: #iHateTheWait.
Several of the country’s busiest airports have threatened to replace the TSA with private passenger screening companies.
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates Newark, John F. Kennedy and LaGuardia airports, was the latest agency to demand that the TSA add more staff to reduce wait times in security lines.
From mid-March to mid-April, there were hundreds of times that passengers waited more than 20 minutes — and sometimes more than 55 minutes, a Port Authority letter said.
In February, Atlanta’s airport — the busiest passenger airport in the world — sent a letter to the TSA complaining about “inadequate” staffing and warning about increasing passenger traffic this summer.
