U.S. airlines are warning of mounting delays, operational strain, and potential safety risks as a partial shutdown of the federal government leaves tens of thousands of Transportation Security Administration officers and other Homeland Security staff working without pay. With the Department of Homeland Security entering a funding lapse that began on Saturday, the travel industry is bracing for a repeat of past shutdown disruptions, even as carriers approach a busy late-winter and spring break travel period.
Shutdown Hits TSA Paychecks as Travel Demand Stays Strong
The current stalemate in Washington centers on funding for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the TSA, Customs and Border Protection and several other agencies critical to the aviation system. While most DHS employees are designated essential and must continue reporting for duty, their paychecks have been halted until Congress and the White House reach a deal to restore funding.
TSA officers, many of whom earn modest salaries and rely on regular pay cycles, are among those now working without pay across U.S. airports. The agency continues to screen nearly three million passengers a day, according to recent congressional and industry estimates, at a time when air travel demand remains near record levels following a strong 2025 holiday season and a busy start to 2026.
Airlines say that combination of high passenger volumes and unpaid security staff is an unstable mix. Executives and trade groups note that even before the latest shutdown, airport staffing in both security and air traffic control was stretched thin in several regions. They warn that any uptick in absenteeism among unpaid federal workers could quickly translate into longer lines at checkpoints, missed flights and knock-on operational disruptions throughout the system.
Airlines and Trade Groups Sound Alarm Over Workforce Strain
Major U.S. carriers, through their lobbying arm Airlines for America, have been increasingly vocal about the compounding impact of repeated shutdowns on the aviation workforce. In recent months, the group has highlighted how federal staffing shortfalls and mandated traffic reductions contributed to a sharp rise in delay minutes and thousands of flight cancellations during the 2025 funding crisis, particularly in early November when air traffic controller staffing fell to critical levels at multiple airports.
While the current situation is focused on DHS rather than the Federal Aviation Administration, airline executives say the lesson from 2025 is clear. When essential workers are asked to keep the system running without pay, fatigue, financial stress and attrition eventually filter into the day-to-day reliability of air travel. Carriers must compensate with schedule adjustments, added buffer time and contingency staffing, all of which erode efficiency and increase costs.
Industry officials also stress that TSA officers, like air traffic controllers, represent a thin margin of error. If even a small percentage of screeners begin calling in sick or seeking other temporary work to cover household expenses, checkpoint capacity can shrink quickly. That in turn can force airlines to hold departures for delayed passengers or leave travelers behind, fraying customer relationships and undermining confidence heading into key travel periods.
Early Signs of Airport Delays as Shutdown Enters First Week
In the first days of the shutdown, routine operations have largely continued, but early stress points are already emerging. Some major hubs, including Newark Liberty International and Dallas Fort Worth International, have reported periodic ground delays and extended security wait times in recent shutdown cycles, a pattern airlines fear could reemerge if the funding lapse persists.
Recent government and industry data from the 2025 shutdown offer a sobering preview. Then, staffing issues contributed to more than half of all delay minutes in the National Airspace System over key weekends, with airlines canceling thousands of flights after the FAA ordered temporary flight reductions at dozens of airports. Even though TSA maintained security screening, higher unscheduled absences and low morale at checkpoints forced some airports to consolidate or temporarily close lanes, exacerbating congestion.
Travelers are already being advised by both airlines and airport authorities to arrive earlier than usual for flights, particularly at large coastal hubs and high-volume connecting airports. Social media posts and passenger reports from several gateways on Sunday and Monday described security lines snaking through terminals during peak morning and late afternoon departure banks, as screeners juggled holiday carryover traffic and routine business demand with limited staffing flexibility.
TSA Workforce Under Financial and Emotional Pressure
For TSA officers, the shutdown presents immediate financial and emotional challenges. Many screeners live paycheck to paycheck and have limited savings to cover rent, childcare, transportation and other essentials if the funding impasse extends for weeks. Past shutdowns have seen officers turn to short-term loans, credit cards and side jobs to bridge the gap, deepening stress and distractions away from an already demanding security role.
Union representatives and worker advocates have warned that such conditions are unsustainable for employees tasked with preventing dangerous items and potential threats from boarding aircraft. They argue that expecting officers to maintain peak concentration and professionalism while worrying about overdue bills or food costs creates both a moral and operational risk for the aviation system.
Morale within the TSA workforce is also in focus. Years of heightened passenger volumes, evolving security procedures, and periodic political brinkmanship over agency funding have left many officers feeling undervalued, according to worker surveys and union statements. Another shutdown forcing them to the front lines without pay threatens to accelerate departures, particularly among experienced staff whose institutional knowledge is difficult to quickly replace.
Memories of Past Shutdown Disruptions Shape Airline Response
Airline leaders are drawing heavily on recent history in framing their warnings. The prolonged government shutdown from late 2018 into January 2019, though centered on a different political dispute, became a case study in how fragile the aviation ecosystem can be when federal workers go unpaid. At one point during that episode, unscheduled absences among TSA officers reached roughly 10 percent of the workforce on a single day, forcing several airports to temporarily close checkpoints and triggering hours-long lines.
More recently, the 2025 shutdown created cascading problems beyond TSA checkpoints. With air traffic controllers also working without pay under the Department of Transportation during that episode, a combination of sick calls, fatigue and staffing attrition led to notable slowdowns, including unmanned tower periods at smaller airports and traffic metering at busy hubs. Airlines say they were forced to cancel thousands of flights over a matter of days, with millions of passengers experiencing disruptions.
While the current partial shutdown formally targets DHS rather than the FAA, executives say the overall system resilience has not fully recovered from those earlier shocks. Training pipelines for new controllers and security officers are still catching up, and airlines are operating fuller schedules with tighter turn times and thinner margins. That leaves less room to absorb any new wave of staffing disruptions, whether in security queues or in en route traffic management.
Lawmakers Trade Blame as Travel Industry Urges Swift Deal
On Capitol Hill, the aviation fallout is quickly becoming part of the political argument. Senior members of the House Homeland Security Committee have already circulated letters warning that prolonged unpaid work for TSA screeners and other DHS staff risks a full-scale aviation crisis if the shutdown drags into upcoming peak travel periods. They point to record passenger volumes and the sheer scale of the system, which handles roughly 45,000 daily flights and millions of travelers.
Democrats and Republicans are trading blame over who is responsible for the impasse, but both sides are facing pressure from constituents frustrated by the prospect of renewed gridlock at airports. Travel industry groups, including airline and airport associations, are urging lawmakers to separate aviation security funding from broader political disputes by passing a short-term measure that restores pay to essential workers while negotiations continue.
Some lawmakers have floated targeted bills that would guarantee pay for TSA officers and certain other critical DHS staff during shutdowns, but those proposals have yet to gain traction. For now, the focus remains on a broader funding agreement that would fully reopen the department, a prospect that appears distant as key players dig in over immigration enforcement and oversight provisions at the heart of the dispute.
Travelers Face Longer Lines, Uncertainty and Patchwork Conditions
For passengers, the impact of the shutdown is likely to be uneven, varying by airport, time of day and local staffing conditions. Large hubs with more robust TSA staffing pools may be able to absorb some increase in absences without severe slowdowns, while mid-size and regional airports with leaner teams could see more pronounced spikes in wait times if even a handful of officers are unavailable.
Travelers heading to or from the United States are being advised to build in additional time at security, keep documentation and electronics organized to speed screening, and monitor airline alerts closely for any schedule changes tied to congestion at checkpoints. International passengers may also encounter delays in customs processing if staffing at entry points is strained by unpaid work and higher-than-normal sick calls.
Airlines, for their part, are trying to maintain published schedules while quietly preparing contingency plans. Some carriers are reviewing options to consolidate lightly booked flights, adjust departure banks, or temporarily cap capacity at the most affected hubs if TSA throughput becomes a binding constraint. Such moves would likely be communicated late in the booking cycle to avoid spooking demand, but they could translate into more last-minute rebookings and schedule shifts for travelers.
Longer-Term Risks for Aviation Safety and Competitiveness
Beyond the immediate disruptions, airline leaders and aviation analysts worry that repeated shutdowns and chronic funding uncertainty will erode the long-term health of the system. They argue that making critical safety and security functions contingent on short-term political negotiations undermines the United States’ reputation as a reliable aviation hub and could eventually drive some high-value traffic to more stable foreign gateways.
There are also concerns about the cumulative effect of on-again, off-again funding on workforce recruitment and retention. Young professionals considering careers as security officers, air traffic controllers or other aviation specialists may think twice if the prospect of working without pay during political standoffs becomes a recurring feature of the job. That could complicate efforts by the TSA and other agencies to rebuild staffing pipelines that were depleted during the pandemic and earlier shutdowns.
For airlines, the stakes are not merely operational but also financial. Disruptions tied to federal staffing shortfalls force carriers to absorb the cost of rebooking, passenger care, crew realignment and lost productivity, often without recourse or compensation. Industry groups have begun pushing for a more formal recognition in federal policy that aviation is a critical economic engine, arguing that its supporting agencies should receive more insulated, multi-year funding to prevent future shutdown-induced turbulence.