TSA officials warn some airports could close as DHS shutdown leaves 50,000 officers unpaid, driving staffing shortages and long security lines nationwide.
The shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) could cause some airports to close if enough security workers don’t show up, a TSA administrator said Tuesday.
On Fox News, TSA’s acting deputy administrator, Adam Stahl, said that if the shutdown isn’t resolved, “it’s not hyperbole to suggest that we may have to quite literally shut down airports, particularly smaller ones, if call-out rates go up.”
A TSA spokesperson later confirmed to The New York Times that the agency would only shutter airports if there were not enough officers to staff the screening checkpoints. He did not comment on whether any airports were currently in danger of reaching that threshold.
The country’s 50,000 TSA officers, have been working without pay since February 14, when Congress let DHS funding lapse over disagreements on immigration enforcement. Since then, many officers have called in sick to work, while others have quit their jobs entirely, leading to long waits to be screened at airports across the country.
Thus far, long waits are the only fallout related to TSA’s staffing woes—there haven’t been any airports closed for any portion of an operational day. Absence rates on Monday ranged from 37 percent of officers at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport to 55 percent at Houston’s Hobby Airport. Acting Deputy Administrator Stahl warned of increases to wait times if workers continue to call in sick at this rate. Typically, fewer than 2% of TSA officers call in sick on any given day.
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The staffing shortages come at a critical time for airlines. Many U.S. carriers depend on spring break travel to turn in profitable first quarter results. Airlines, however, have been relatively rosy in their outlooks for the period. Although fears of a fuel shortage related to the Iran War have driven fuel prices and fares up, airlines have reported that passenger demand remains relatively strong despite the price increase. Carriers with large international networks, such as United, Delta, and American, have benefitted in part from mass reroutings of international travelers to avoid connections in the Gulf region.
Long waits at security, however, could eventually dampen demand for air travel—particularly in short haul markets where travelers might take surface transport instead—if the shutdown continues.
In a letter to Congress on behalf of the leaders of US passenger and cargo airlines, industry trade association Airlines 4 America complained that air travel had been made a “political football”, citing recent polling that 93% of Americans supported paying federal aviation workers during government shutdowns.
“TSA officers just received $0 paychecks. That is simply unacceptable,” reads the letter, in part. It goes on to remind Congress that FIFA World Cup and America 250 celebrations will also boost demand for air travel in 2026, and airlines are already handling record 171 million passengers just during the spring season alone.
The DHS shutdown has lasted 35 days as of March 19. A full government shutdown in 2025 lasting 43 days was the longest on record, furloughing 900,000 federal workers and costing the government some $11 billion. TSA workers were among the federal workers who continued working without pay during that shutdown, alongside air traffic controllers employed by the FAA. Air traffic controllers are not included in the current DHS shutdown.
Stahl said the agency’s resources are stretched to their limits by the sick calls. “We’re doing absolutely everything we can,” Stahl told Fox & Friends on Tuesday. “We have a national deployment office force, and we’ve fully depleted that. So, at this point, we’re fully stretched, and so frankly, there’s not much else we can do.”