BWI Marshall Airport continued to advise travelers to arrive late Saturday as long security lines continued, in part prompted by a shortage of staff among Transportation Security Administration officials during the extended government shutdown.
The guidance came a day after President Donald Trump signed an executive action aimed at addressing bottlenecks at airports across the country. In a statement authorizing pay for TSA workers, Trump said “America’s air travel system is at an end,” according to the Associated Press. TSA agents have spent more than 40 days working without pay during a federal operation.
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said TSA workers could start getting paid as soon as Monday.
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A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security thanked Mullin and Trump for their efforts to get TSA workers paid during the shutdown in an email Saturday to The Baltimore Sun.
“During this time, more than 500 officers have resigned, and thousands more have been forced to cry because they can’t get basic necessities like gas, childcare, food or rent,” the spokesman said. “We thank President Trump for taking action to help fund and pay TSA workers after more than 40 days without pay.”
DC area airport in the eye of the storm
At the airport, security checkpoints A and B were closed, and officials warned of “significant delays” at Checkpoint C, which are expected to continue throughout Saturday. As of 9 a.m., BWI advised travelers to arrive four hours before departure — much earlier than the usual recommendation of two to three hours for domestic or international flights.
“We have never seen waiting times similar to what we are seeing this morning,” the airport wrote in a post on X.
The passengers most affected are those departing from A, B, C concourses. D/E’s safety net was not significantly affected this morning, although BWI advised in a post that that could change as the day progresses.
The delays followed a suspension issued Friday evening by the Federal Aviation Administration. BWI was one of five airports affected, along with Washington Dulles International, Ronald Reagan Washington National, Charlottesville-Albemarle and Richmond airports.
The FAA said the ground stop is tied to the Operational Contingency Level, a reduced level of air traffic control services used during an emergency or equipment failure. The disruption was linked to reports of a strong odor at the Potomac Terminal Radar Approach Control facility, which handles air traffic control in the area.
The body was lifted shortly after 8pm, but the delay continued until Saturday morning.
BWI Customer Service Representative Martin Louamou said he has never seen lines like this around the airport gates in more than two decades of working at airports, including New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport.
The 62-year-old was stationed at the ever-changing end of the line with a sign meant to help incoming passengers find where to start long queues at the airport, a job which began on Friday. Louamou said he saw “a lot of people missing flights” this week, while “before, everything was fine.”
On the outside, Progress Maduka had no hope of catching his Southwest flight to Charlotte at 1:30 pm Saturday. He hoped the order signed by President Trump would begin paying the TSA “immediately.”
“I understand what … Congress is fighting for,” Maduka said. But now it affects a lot of people,” including passengers and workers alike.
Adrien Malick walked with his daughter, wife and 2-year-old granddaughter in the outside line as they waited, starting at 10 a.m., to enter the airport in hopes of catching a flight to Sarasota on Saturday afternoon.
“I’ve never seen so many people in one place at one time,” said Malick. “It’s ridiculous… It seems like it’s just politics. No one wants to make the other person look good.”
Leslie Pahl, Malick’s daughter, blamed “ineffective leadership” for BWI’s delays.
US Representative Sarah Elfreth voted against the House Republicans’ decision to support the Department of Homeland Security, the federal agency that runs several national agencies such as TSA, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Patrol. Although the US Senate has passed a bill to support DHS, including the TSA, without funding for ICE and Border Patrol, the House has passed a bill to support the entire agency until May 22, according to the Associated Press.
“To represent the Baltimore/Washington International (BWI) Thurgood Marshall Airport and more than 45,000 federal employees, nothing is more important than paying our public servants and ensuring that the American people can travel safely,” Elfreth said in a statement after the vote on Friday night.
“I have been clear that we will not support President Trump’s weapons of ICE and the brutality they have unleashed on communities around our country,” he said.
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