LaGuardia, Kennedy security wait times unclear after Trump order to get TSA agents paid

 How long the TSA security lines are at New York City airports was unclear and variable on Saturday, a day after President Donald Trump signed an executive order to pay Transportation Security Administration workers who have gone weeks without paychecks.

The Port Authority — which operates Kennedy and LaGuardia — said in a Saturday email that TSA staffing shortages at those airports were "resulting in extended security screening wait times in multiple terminals."

A spokesperson with the agency could not say exactly how long wait times were at those airports, telling Newsday via email that the Port Authority "temporarily suspended publication of estimated wait times" because lines were too long for the agency's technology to effectively gauge them.

The agency wrote: "Those estimates [are] only reliable when passenger lines remain within designated queue areas. Due to increased TSA staffing shortages associated with the federal funding lapse, combined with higher spring break travel volumes, lines are more frequently extending beyond those spaces."

The Port Authority spokesperson said "passengers should allow for significantly more time for screening and check with their airline for the latest flight information."

The MyTSA app showed wait times of less than 30 minutes at Kennedy, LaGuardia and Long Island MacArthur airports. That app uses historical averages, however, when real-time data is not available. It was not being "actively managed" on Saturday because of the federal funding lapse, according to an alert on the app.

On Friday, disgruntled travelers were still waiting in hourslong lines at LaGuardia. 

Tim Kauffman, a spokesman for American Federation of Government Employees, the union that represents 47,000 TSA employees who would normally be screening passengers and baggage at the nation’s airports, said on Friday "no TSA officers] have been paid."

A spokesperson for Homeland Security, TSA’s parent department, said "TSA officers should begin seeing paychecks as early as Monday, March 30." Trump signed an executive action on Friday afternoon to pay TSA workers, saying in a memo authorizing the payments that "America’s air travel system has reached its breaking point." The White House said funding to pay TSA workers would come from Trump’s tax cut bill.

But on Friday, Day 42 of the funding crisis for Homeland Security, the line of harried, shuffling travelers waiting to clear the security checkpoint at LaGuardia Airport’s Terminal B once more snaked across the terminal’s eastern half before doubling back on itself. An airport employee holding a yellow sign to indicate the start of the line told travelers the wait would be two hours.

"I just got here and I already hate it," said Devante Le, 29, a construction worker from the Eastchester section of the Bronx who hoped to get on a flight to Las Vegas. "The way our government ... it’s not as efficient as it should be."

Rebecca Alesia, a luxury travel adviser with Wanderology, based in Locust Valley, said the promised TSA payments were reason to hope that American travel would grow more bearable soon. "I think that people are basically stretched to the breaking point, and it sounds like the president is hearing that."

Back in Terminal B, Meghan Carlton, 29, a student from the Bronx who’d arrived five hours early for a flight to Denver said she "didn’t have a lot of trust in getting the situation resolved. ... The way our government doesn’t work is embarrassing. You grow up thinking everything is so official, and they can’t get simple things done."

In the weeks they have gone without pay, thousands of TSA workers have begun calling out sick and hundreds have quit.

Congress has not given Homeland Security new funding since February, and any imminent deal appeared unlikely after House Republicans on Friday night passed an eight-week measure to fund the Department of Homeland Security, rejecting the Senate deal.

Speaker Mike Johnson said he had spoken with Trump about the House Republican plan and the president "supports it."

House Republicans are angry that the bill passed early Friday by the Senate does not fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol. Democrats refused to fund those departments without changes to immigration enforcement practices. They have asked to end enforcement operations at schools and churches and for warrants to be signed by judges before federal agents can forcibly enter private homes or other nonpublic spaces without consent, among other demands. 

Flights in and out of LaGuardia were faring far better on Saturday evening than on Friday. It had dropped to number 22 on flight tracking service FlightAware's Misery Map of national airports. LaGuardia had the No. 1 spot on that map 24 hours earlier.

As of 7:15 p.m. Saturday, LaGuardia had 46 delayed flights and 16 cancellations, according to FlightAware. That is a substantial drop when compared with Wednesday evening, when LaGuardia had 267 flight delays and 338 cancellations by 6 p.m.

Kennedy Airport was at number 14 on the Misery Map Saturday evening, with 63 delays and three cancellations, down from 100 and four, respectively, shortly after noon. Kennedy had experienced 198 flight delays and 10 cancellations by 4 p.m. on Monday, Newsday reported.

Long Island MacArthur Airport, in Islip Town, had just 6 delays and no cancellations on Saturday evening. Service at the smaller airport was also sparred any impact from the plane crash at LaGuardia on Sunday night, according to town spokeswoman Caroline Smith. MacArthur had eight delays and no cancellations on Monday, for example.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.