Dozens of flights have been delayed or cancelled at the area’s three main airports as of Sunday morning.
Trump to deploy ICE agents to airports as TSA workers go unpaid
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Dozens of flights from the area’s three major airports are delayed or cancelled on Sunday, March 22, after a week that saw hundreds of cancellations, mostly due to bad weather.
Delays at U.S. airports have increased in recent weeks due to a battle in Washington over funding the Department of Homeland Security, which includes the Transportation Security Administration that screens airline passengers. TSA workers have not been paid for weeks resulting in call outs and slow downs at many airports as well as unpredictable wait times in security lines.
These are the reported delays and cancellations at each airport as of 9:30 a.m., according to FlightAware. Note that these are likely to increase throughout the day.
- Newark Liberty International: 41 delays, eight cancellations.
- LaGuardia: 42 delays, eight cancellation
- John F. Kennedy: 73 delays, 11 cancellations
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Across the U.S., there were 8,531 delays and 480 cancellations at the same time.
Lines at Newark TSA checkpoints
Lines at Newark’s TSA checkpoints are averaging anywhere from 1 to 12 minutes depending on the terminal and gates on Sunday morning, according to the airport’s real-time tracker.
Democrats in Congress have refused to fund U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which is a part of DHS, without operational changes, after the deaths of two U.S. citizens during an immigration campaign in Minneapolis.
Republicans so far have rejected the proposals, as well as Democratic bills that would fund TSA and other parts of Homeland Security while the ICE debate continues.
TSA absences reached 10% last weekend, a jump from the standard rate of under 2% during normal operations, DHS said.
Some airports had much higher no-show rates, with JFK seeing a 29% absence rate, 32% in Atlanta and 27% in New Orleans on March 18, the agency reported.
This article includes reporting from USA Today.
