Why Does It Take Longer To Fly Out Of Austin’s Airport Now Than Before The Pandemic?

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The live music, restaurants and bars at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport are designed to entice people to spend a little more time at the airport. These days travelers may not have much choice.

Checking in a bag, searching TSA security, and even grabbing a coffee and sandwich have become so time consuming that airport officials are now instructing travelers to arrive 30 minutes earlier than it was in 2019, when the airport broke passenger records.

The new guidelines recommend arriving at least two and a half hours prior to departure during peak travel times – 5 a.m. to 8 a.m., 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 3:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m., and at least two hours before the day’s departure for less busy periods .

Typical air travel waiting times are exacerbated by a shortage of staff and an increase in family vacationers who are less nimble in everyday airport life than the nimble business travelers who have been slower to get back to heaven.

“This is the busiest thing I’ve seen in a long time,” said Justin Lee, who was queuing early Tuesday morning to check a bag. “That’s a bit of a surprise.”

Almost as many people have been traveling in the last few days as there was in 2019, a recovery from the worst of the pandemic when the airport’s passenger numbers fell by more than 90%. But the slowdown in service goes back weeks before passenger traffic nearly hit pre-pandemic levels.

Nathan Bernier / KUT

TSA data provided by Austin-Bergstrom International Airport staff shows how daily passenger traffic has almost returned to 2019 levels.

TSA security slowdown

The queues are partly due to staff shortages at TSA security, a challenge recognized by both the agency and the union that represents its workers.

ABIA officials told the Austin City Airport Advisory Board in mid-July that TSA wait times had improved since Memorial Day after the agency introduced mandatory overtime for employees. The agency has achieved its goal of keeping security check lines under 30 minutes, airport officials said.

This is usually, but not always, the case, according to the publicly accessible TSA waiting times that the KUT has been recording since July 17th. Waiting times in the Barbara Jordan Terminal exceeded 30 minutes on at least six days. Almost all cases were in the early afternoon.

Nathan Bernier / KUT

Waiting times were collected between July 17th and August 3rd.

“We are working with TSA,” said Ghizlane Badawi, the airport’s chief operating officer, the airport commissioner. “You have the same problems as everyone else, a lack of staff.”

She said the airport has hired additional staff to help with the queues at security checkpoints and at the airport ticket counters.

Screeners at ABIA must work at least one additional eight-hour shift per week, TSA said. Starting next week, the mandatory overtime will be reduced to an additional shift every two weeks.

The union that represents TSA workers argues that mandatory overtime makes it harder to keep screeners.

“What about their family needs?” said Hydrick Thomas, president of the American Federation of Government Employees’ Council 100, which represents nearly 46,000 TSA officials. “Now you’re going to instruct her to come over on one of her days off.”

Thomas says TSA is one of the lowest paying agents in the federal government, with entry-level screeners starting at around $ 35,000 a year. He wants Congress to pass a law that gives TSA employees the same protection as most other federal employees.

“If the employees got a decent wage, they wouldn’t mind working every day,” said Thomas.

The TSA said it is actively recruiting with two rounds of introductions scheduled in Austin this month. But the agency says other factors are also slowing down screeners.

Traffic safety authority

One of 62 firearms that were seized by TSA security auditors at ABIA this year from travelers passing through checkpoints with hand luggage.

Leisure travelers, to whom the industry owes its recent business expansion, tend to bring more luggage with them. Screeners have also reported a surge in people trying to get banned items through security – everything from Gatorade to guns.

“A lot of people who haven’t traveled in a long time tend to forget the very basic things of 3.4 ounces of liquid, not any kind of knives,” said TSA spokeswoman Patricia Mancha. “Every time you find a prohibited item, whether it’s a firearm or a bottle of water, it requires additional verification … and affects everyone behind you.”

Airport officials plan to set up four TSA security checkpoints near the Southwest Airlines ticket office in the coming months. That brings the total number of lanes at the airport to more than 20, officials said.

Flight delays

Roadside airline check-in and ticket counters are also understaffed, according to Austin airport officials.

The airlines “kind of let their frontline workers down,” said former airline manager Robert W. Mann, who is now an industry analyst.

Gabriel C. Pérez / KUT

Austin Airport people walk past travelers waiting in line to check in their bags or speaking to airline staff at the ticket office.

He argued that improved unemployment benefits, which have now expired in Texas, made airline wages less attractive. But Mann added that $ 25 billion in state payrolls for U.S. airlines helped keep the industry aloft.

The people who travel today are different from the customer base the aviation industry has sought to serve over the past 20 years. Many don’t use self-service technology and instead choose to speak to face-to-face staff, which means longer lines.

“We have such a backlog in travel that people who have never traveled suddenly start traveling,” said Mann. “Many of them are completely unprepared to deal with the self-service environment the airline wants you to deal with.”

Most airlines operating out of ABIA did not respond to requests about the delays. United Airlines referred KUT back to Austin airport officials. Southwest Airlines directed KUT to a page on their website advising Austin travelers to arrive two hours before departure.

Slow food service

Once passengers exit TSA security, they may run into another line when trying to buy a slice of pizza or a bottle of water. The staff shortage among the three companies operating concessions at ABIA has become so great that they are poaching employees from one another, airport officials said.

Gabriel C. Pérez / KUT

The three companies that operate ABIA’s many food and beverage companies have struggled to recruit enough staff.

Job fairs and hiring incentives help to attract new employees. Two of the three concessionaires promise to reopen all stores by the end of August.

But freshly trained recruits also need time to familiarize themselves with. A local charity that picks up unsold groceries at the airport to distribute to nonprofits – from domestic violence shelters to church pantries – reported a decline in collections from airport concessionaires.

“The numbers right now, this month, are lower than they were before the pandemic,” said Lisa Barden, executive director of Keep Austin Fed. “I think this is more of an exercise problem than a lack of excess food.”

$ 85 to skip the TSA line for five years

The prospect of a long line at the security checkpoint makes more travelers consider TSA PreCheck, a $ 85 5-year membership that allows people to ride through their own expedited security line without shoes, belts, liquids, or lightweight jackets having to move out.

Enrollment takes about 5 minutes online or 10 minutes in person, and most people are approved in a few days, with almost all being approved within two weeks, Mancha said.

For an additional $ 15, travelers can add Global Entry for faster processing by U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

Gabriel C. Pérez / KUT

TSA PreCheck allows people to skip the normal lines of security, but it costs $ 85 for five years.

More people are using PreCheck than ever. Eleven million people are currently participating in the program, exceeding the 10 million mark reached at the beginning of 2020 at the beginning of the pandemic. The TSA is still far from an earlier goal of having 25 million travelers enrolled by 2019.

Plans to expand the airport are making progress

Airport management plans to expand that is said to help ease the pressure from relentless economic growth in the Austin area.

Plans include increasing passenger control capacity, adding new gates, expanding the ticket counter area and replacing an outdated checked baggage control system with a single, consolidated, higher capacity system.

ABIA employees

A slide from a presentation by airport employees showing their ambitions to improve ABIA’s checked baggage control system

The expansion continues, although the highly virulent delta variant of the coronavirus rages through unvaccinated populations and threatens a further slowdown in air traffic.

“Will the delta option have an impact? [travel volumes]? Most likely, “Eugene Sepulveda, chairman of the airport advisory commission, told KUT.” But I think what we have learned from the entire COVID lockdown is that as soon as circumstances allow, we will have some catching up to do. I am now less likely to plan to postpone our capital improvement project than I was when we first stepped into the COVID pandemic. “

Gabriel C. Pérez / KUT

A family walks through the Barbara Jordan Terminal at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport

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