Dec. 03--Security lines that opened a half-hour after ticket counters and a lack of personnel during the first few hours of the day led to long waits Sunday for holiday travelers at Midway Airport, the Transportation Security Administration said this week.
Passengers trying to get around on one of the busiest travel days of the year were greeted with lines that stretched from the airport's screening area, through the parking garage and into a corridor leading to the airport "L" stop.
A Chicago Department of Aviation spokeswoman said that most of the delays were cleared up by 9:30 a.m. but that the problem occurred when the TSA started security screening at 4 a.m., a half-hour after airlines opened their ticket counters.
"TSA is currently reviewing the causes of (Sunday's) longer than usual wait times at MDW to prevent a similar occurrence in the future," the TSA said in a statement. "Unfortunately, some passengers experienced wait times that well exceeded 20 minutes on the morning of Nov. 30, the busiest travel day of the year."
In addition to checkpoints that opened a half-hour after ticket counters, staffing was lower than planned for the first two hours the checkpoints were open, officials said.
The TSA disputed claims that the lines at Midway were 1 1/2 miles long, with wait times of more than an hour. A TSA spokesman said the longest wait time recorded was 50 minutes and, given the distance from the checkpoint to the CTA station, the longest distance was closer to a half-mile.
City officials helped try to speed things along once the checkpoints were open.
"The TSA operates security checkpoints lines," Aviation Department spokeswoman Karen Pride said Tuesday. "We had Aviation and Chicago police officers assisting passengers to get in line and move efficiently through the lines once they were operating."
Alan Gentry, who arrived at Midway two hours early that morning for a flight back to Dallas, said he encountered the line shortly after he got off the Orange Line.
"I thought it was the line for ticketing. But it wasn't," Gentry, 44, said in a phone interview Tuesday after spending a week in Chicago with relatives. "There was a police officer directing people around him in a loop."
After getting to the ticket counter and checking his bag, Gentry said, he barely made his flight after spending 75 minutes in the security line.
"Bag checks weren't happening," Gentry said. "Honestly, if someone had gone through with their shoes on, I don't think TSA would have said a thing about it."
