No food, water or AC: What it's like to stand in TSA line during the DHS funding fight
CBSN
Travelers at Houston's George Bush Intercontinental Airport are standing for hours in security lines that may cause more risks for travelers — amid a DHS funding fight that's resulted in TSA staff shortages at major U.S. airports. Kaia Hubbard and Kathryn Krupnik contributed to this report. In:
Travelers at Houston's George Bush Intercontinental Airport are standing for hours in security lines that may cause more risks for travelers — amid a DHS funding fight that's resulted in TSA staff shortages at major U.S. airports.
The disarray was on full display Tuesday as our CBS News team stood in a screening line. After two hours in the TSA line, we emerged from a basement subway corridor after walking past three different terminals.
Late Tuesday morning, in Terminal E, the line extends three stories, including outside the airport terminal where lines are sneaking around the drop-off stations for buses.
Lines to clear security in Terminal A stretched across three levels and wrapped around three terminals in the subway corridor at the basement level, an area with no access to food, water, working air conditioning or restrooms — and limited cell service. From there, the line wound up escalators to baggage claim, then looped up a second set of escalators, finally surfacing at the third-floor ticketing area.
Passengers described wait times of five hours, with nearly everyone around me missing their flights, resigned to just rebooking on the other side of the security lines. Overhead announcements periodically advised those with departures within four hours to consider rebooking now.
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