Thousands of flights canceled or delayed as weather and TSA staffing upend travel

Air travelers faced hundreds of flight cancellations and thousands of delays on Tuesday in the wake of powerful storms that struck the Midwest and Eastern Seaboard. Many airports also continue to struggle with disruption from reduced staffing at often-jammed security checkpoints amid a partial government shutdown that has lasted more than a month.

The partial shutdown that started Feb. 14 has held up paychecks for employees of the Transportation Security Administration as Congress deadlocked over immigration issues. More than 300 TSA staffers have quit since the shutdown began, and call-out rates have more than doubled, according to data obtained exclusively by CBS News. 

Monday has had the highest call-out rates so far, TSA data show, followed closely by the number of absences on Sunday and Saturday.

At some major airports, more than one-third of TSA staffers called out Monday, with rates of 35% out in Houston, 37% in Atlanta, nearly 39% in New Orleans and 30% at New York’s JFK.

At the same time, airports are crowded with spring break travelers and fans heading to March Madness games as the annual NCAA men’s and women’s college basketball tournaments ramp up.

More than 1,000 U.S. flights have been canceled as of midday Tuesday, and more than 4,000 were delayed, according to flight-tracking site FlightAware.

Peak wait times at standards security lines have stretched to 120 minutes at the Atlanta airport, 103 minutes in Houston, 60 minutes in Austin and 59 minutes at Chicago’s O’Hare.

Flight delays and cancellations also piled up Monday at some of the nation’s largest airports, including those in New York, Chicago and Atlanta. The storm system that dumped heavy snow across the Midwest raced toward the East Coast with high winds reaching gusts near 50 mph in parts of New York, the National Weather Service said.

Kelly Price, who was trying to get home to Colorado after a family vacation in Orlando, Florida, said her Sunday night flight wasn’t canceled until early Monday.

“By that time the only place for us to sleep was the airport floor. So we’re all tired and frustrated,” she said, adding that the soonest she and her family could book another flight doesn’t leave until Tuesday afternoon.

The nationwide cancellations on Monday included about 600 flights in and out of Chicago O’Hare International, more than 470 at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International and over 450 at LaGuardia Airport in New York City, according to FlightAware.

Citing severe weather, the Federal Aviation Administration ordered ground stops at Hartsfield-Jackson and Charlotte Douglas International Airport and ground delays at JFK and Newark Liberty International Airport.

Danielle Cash found herself stranded in St. Louis on Sunday while trying to get home to Tampa, Florida, after a weekend girls’ trip to Las Vegas. Now she’s spending several hundred dollars more than planned on a hotel room in a snowy city she wasn’t dressed for.

“It was 80 degrees in Tampa when I left and then going to Vegas,” she said. “And it was 90 degrees in the desert.”

Cash said she’s now booked on a flight that will take her to Tennessee before finally returning to Tampa by Tuesday afternoon.

Partial government shutdown

The current partial government shutdown affects only the Department of Homeland Security, which includes the Transportation Security Administration.

Democrats in Congress have said they won’t vote for funding Homeland Security until new restrictions are placed on federal immigration operations following the fatal shootings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good in Minneapolis earlier this year.

It is the third shutdown in less than a year to leave TSA workers temporarily without pay. Once the government reopens, employees will have to wait for back pay.

Some airports have reported longer security lines because of staffing shortages as more TSA workers take on second jobs, can’t afford gas to get to work or leave the profession altogether. Homeland Security has said more than 300 TSA agents have quit since the start of the shutdown.

TSA union leaders in Atlanta held a news conference Monday outside Hartsfield-Jackson, warning that air travelers could face increasingly long wait times as the shutdown continues. Even so, union leaders said, many officers are still reporting to work despite mounting financial strain.

Many TSA workers “are coping with eviction notices, vehicle repossessions, empty refrigerators and overdrawn bank accounts,” said Aaron Barker, a local leader with the American Federation of Government Employees. Supporters behind him held signs reading, “We want a paycheck, not a rain check.”

Travelers flying out of New Orleans on Sunday and Monday were advised to arrive at least three hours early “due to impacts from the federal government’s partial shutdown,” Louis Armstrong International Airport said on X. And the airport in Austin, Texas, shared a video on X taken at 5:30 a.m. local time showing the security line spilling out onto the sidewalk outside.

Back in Atlanta, Mel Stewart and his wife arrived four hours earlier than usual for their flight out of Hartsfield-Jackson to make up for longer TSA lines.

“I think it’s being politicized way too much — way too much,” Stewart said Monday of the shutdown. “And these people are working. They work hard, and for TSA people not to get paid, that’s silly.”