Atlanta airport warns of busy spring break weekend travel surge
The past few days at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport have been blessedly quiet after weeks of abnormally long security lines caused by the ongoing partial government shutdown.
According to an Atlanta Journal-Constitution analysis of the airport’s reactivated live security wait tracker, the longest line at any checkpoint Wednesday was just 19 minutes at one point.
But airport officials warn travelers not to get complacent ahead of a busy spring break and Easter holiday weekend.
This Friday is expected to be one of the busiest travel days of the month, officials say, with nearly 95,000 people forecast to go through the Transportation Security Administration checkpoints. (Hundreds of thousands more will connect via Hartsfield-Jackson.)
Atlanta’s single-day TSA screening record from May 2025 is about 114,000.
The airport on Wednesday had forecast that Friday could break a record for traffic through its checkpoints, but on Thursday revised that number down.
On Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays, airport officials recommend allowing 2½ hours for domestic travel and three hours for international.
TSA callouts have dropped by more than 40% nationally since Monday, when officers began receiving back pay after six weeks of unpaid work, according to the Department of Homeland Security.
A Friday memo from President Donald Trump directed the agency to use funds to pay TSA on an emergency basis after six weeks of a stalemate over the agency’s funding driven by an immigration policy dispute.
Atlanta’s TSA callout rate was about 20% on Tuesday — down from 37% March 24.
“We’re pointing in the right direction,” George Borek, an American Federation of Government Employees union steward representing Atlanta-area TSA employees, told the AJC.
“Many more people” are showing up for work, he said, especially as management has informed them officers will continue to get paid going forward.
DHS did not immediately reply to the AJC’s request to confirm that. Officers’ next paycheck is set to land April 10.
During the shutdown, DHS also sent Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to airports, including Atlanta, to help support TSA. They remain in Atlanta doing identification verification and crowd management, Borek said.
“But at the end of the day, we don’t know what we’re truly going to have” in terms of total staffing impacts from a shutdown that has forced people out of the job, Borek said.
“Probably by early next week we’ll have a good idea of who’s back and who’s left.”
This shutdown will leave a lingering mark on his colleagues, Borek said.
One of his supervisors told him that after 18 years on the job, this was the first time he’d ever been “put in the predicament” to have to worry about having his utilities shut off.
“Here’s someone that’s done everything right,” Borek said.
Congress needs to “come up with some type of long-term solution. They should be considering funding us four, five, six years out,” Borek said, “so we’re immune every time there’s a policy disagreement over in Washington.”
In the meantime, he is watching the Masters’ impact on the Atlanta airport next weekend.
The golf tournament is set to take place April 9-12, with practice rounds beginning Monday, and many attendees will travel through Hartsfield-Jackson.
The airport says it expects to see more than 8.3 million passengers throughout April.
Editor’s note: This article has been updated to reflect revised estimates issued by Hartsfield-Jackson on Thursday morning.
About the Author
As a business reporter, Emma Hurt leads coverage of the Atlanta airport, Delta Air Lines, UPS, Norfolk Southern and other travel and logistics companies. Prior to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution she worked as an editor and Atlanta reporter for Axios, a politics reporter for WABE News and a business reporter for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
