AUSTIN, Texas — Patrick Rosenthal’s recent flight out of the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport was one to remember, but not for good reason. 

Rosenthal said he traveled from about 4 a.m. to 6 p.m. just to reach a destination normally two hours away. He expressed his frustration with the lack of TSA officers and long lines. 

What You Need To Know

  • TSA lines are so long at the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport that passengers are missing their flights

  • The long lines are partly a result of the lack of TSA workers

  • ABIA said it's working to address the TSA shortage 

  • The TSA says it has extended a $2,000 new hire sign-on bonus to help recruit new officers

When he flew out of the airport April 4 for a business trip to Louisville, he was shocked to see how long the TSA lines were in the morning. 

“It was incredibly long,” Rosenthal said. “It was all the way out the front door, past all the drop off locations of the airlines.”

He said he missed his flight, but the airline was able to accommodate him by getting him on the next flight. However, he fell short of missing part of his scheduled board meeting that day. 

“The airline got me to the board meeting about an hour late and it ended up being OK,” he said. “But I did feel for a lot of people who I saw at the airport who had an incredible amount of delays and missed or canceled flights, and lots of trouble traveling.”

Rosenthal said he remembers wishing there were more TSA officers and more metal detectors to expedite the process. 

An April 2 tweet from the ABIA reads, “Airport leadership continues to partner with TSA to address the TSA staffing shortage and is working with our federal delegation for congressional support.”

According to TSA, to account for increases during that spring break period, ABIA received a cadre of officers called National Deployment Officers (NDO), who deploy to airports that are seeing increases in volume. 

The TSA said it has extended a $2,000 new hire sign-on bonus to help recruit new officers and approved a 15% retention incentive to help mitigate attrition to higher paying jobs. 

“For how long?” Henry Nnorom, local president of AFGE 1048, said. 

AFGE Local 1048 is the labor union for federal employees that represents TSO members in Austin. Nnorom said his members want to see more.

“My members are over-disciplined, overworked, underpaid and not respected,” he said. 

The TSA additionally said it has taken actions at ABIA such as deploying its Scheduling Optimization Team to ensure the most efficient use of scheduling and checkpoint design principles and doubled the number of TSA explosive K-9 teams, which ensures the ability to move screening assets quickly between multiple checkpoints and terminals. 

For passengers like Rosenthal, they want to see more changes implemented to quicker to ensure a smoother experience next time around. 

“I think they need more metal detectors and processing lines and that’s really the main issue,” he said. “But, obviously, if you get more of those, you’re going to need more TSA agents as well.”