Extremely Long Lines Greeting Travelers At Midway
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Bring a book, or put some movies on your tablet if you're headed to Midway International Airport this morning. Security lines were snaking out of the terminal early Friday, and the TSA has said long waits likely will be the new normal.
Thursday night, one passenger posted a video to YouTube, showing what he was going through standing in a security line that stretched all the way to the CTA Orange Line stop, about a quarter mile away from the TSA checkpoint.
Passengers took to social media, flooding Midway's Twitter account with complaints.
Early Friday morning, the line stretched just as far as the night before.
"It's terrible! Look at this long line, I've never had to do this before. I've flown Southwest several times and I've never had to do this," one frustrated passenger told CBS2. "They need to go back to whatever they were doing originally where you don't have to take blocks to get through security."
Even though the TSA recently has said passengers should expect to see long lines at the airports for the foreseeable future – due to record travel volume and fewer personnel – passengers vented their frustration as they waited to get to their flights.
"When you're going to go on a trip, you look forward to the pleasure of it, and where's the pleasure?" one woman said.
"This is crazy, it is so out of order," another passenger said, before another chimed in with, "It's not even a holiday!"
Due to budget cuts, the TSA has lost about 6,000 airport screeners nationwide. So, if you don't want to miss your flight, the TSA has advised travelers to arrive two hours before a domestic flight, and three hours before an international flight.
However, some passengers in line on Friday said they did show up two hours before their flight, and it wasn't helping.
On Friday, TSA said it was going to hire 700 workers and expand the number of K-9 teams used to screen passengers.