NEW YORK—Nonstop rain since Tuesday evening caused New York’s LaGuardia Airport to be filled with delayed passengers before Thanksgiving. With over 2 million people crossing airport checkpoints around the nation on Wednesday, the director of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) consoled travelers at LaGuardia Airport.
“TSA will be ready tomorrow for a big push early on, so those passengers who maybe do get stranded or can’t get out tonight, we’ll be ready to get them out as soon as we can early morning,” said Daniel Ronan, federal security director at TSA.
When the airport opened its checkpoints around 4 a.m. Wednesday, hundreds of people were already lined up in the departures wing. The TSA is responsible for screening all commercial airline passengers and baggage at airports across the nation.
Kenyatta Slade, who was on business in New York, missed his flight back home to Atlanta. When his plane tried taking off Tuesday night, major turbulence and shaking made the pilot circle around and land back at LaGuardia. Slade and other passengers were given hotel accommodations.
“Wife and kids have been pretty worried, but they’ll be happy to see me,” he said. He was catching the early morning flight back to Atlanta and said staff treated him professionally, and he had no qualms about getting back on a plane. “You have to get home,” he said.
April Buchwald from New York was going to see her son and daughter-in-law in Colorado, and said she witnessed multiple road-collisions when making her way to the airport.
“A lot of water, people going too fast, a few fender-benders,” she said. But she’s not worried about flying. “It’s just rain,” Buchwald said.
Sunday will be one of the busiest days of the year at the airports as the TSA expects to screen 2.56 million passengers across 450 airports in the United States—a significant increase from their typical 1.8 million a day.
Ronan said the TSA will bring in extra staff to assist a higher-than-normal number of passengers, and advised all travelers to arrive at least 90 minutes before departure and to sign up for expedited screening known as the PreCheck program.
The PreCheck program started a year and a half ago at LaGuardia, with just two airlines: American and Delta Airlines. Now, there are nine airlines participating in 102 airports. For $85, people can sign up for five years, provided that they submit to a background check and fingerprints.
“It will be a very fast, expedited process for them, because we know something about them,” Ronan said standing in the departures wing of the LaGuardia Airport.
Participating airlines invite frequent fliers to sign up for prescreening, members of the military will be part of PreCheck, and TSA will be opening up its own enrollment centers. The first one opens next week in Indianapolis, and others will be opening up every week throughout the country.
Pre-checked passengers get to use special lanes at the airport, they can keep their shoes on, their belts on, their light jackets on, and their laptops and liquids in their bags.
Although TSA prohibits sharp objects and liquids on board, turkeys are most welcomed.
“We prefer you bring them frozen,” Ronan said.
