After a day of mayhem for travelers at Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport, federal officials decided to deploy Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers to provide “operational support,” according to the Maryland Aviation Administration.
The state’s aviation group said in a statement that ICE officers would start at BWI on Saturday afternoon and their main focus would be providing airport security and expediting lines, not immigration enforcement. Agents will assist Transportation Security Administration personnel.
Trained TSA agents would continue to do all screenings, as they have at other airports where ICE has been deployed this week.
Shannetta Griffin, executive director and CEO of BWI, said she was “grateful to our TSA agents, BWI personnel, concessions employees and other workers who are keeping BWI operational during this challenging time.”
By Saturday evening, the scene inside BWI had shifted but the strain was still visible. After hours of security lines snaking through terminals and spilling onto sidewalks, the crowds had thinned enough to bring the wait fully indoors. Discarded snack wrappers littered the ground where travelers had stood for hours, small remnants of a long and frustrating day.
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As passengers shuffled toward security checkpoints, ICE officers moved through the terminal in clusters of three or four, their presence adding a new and noticeable layer of federal authority to an airport under pressure from staffing shortages and disruptions from the government shutdown.
BWI operations melted down starting early Saturday morning.
Screens that are supposed to show wait times inside BWI didn’t even display numbers, just a message many in the region and across the country have become familiar with: “We are experiencing longer than normal wait times. We apologize for any inconvenience. Thank you for flying with BWI.”
As BWI braced for its highest amount of outbound passengers Saturday, officials suggested travelers arrive at least four hours early amid security agents’ decreasing attendance as the government shutdown continues. Jonathan Dean, a spokesperson for BWI, said the airport is projecting around 30,000 people will travel out of the airport Saturday.
But those traveling Saturday morning would tell you: Three hours wasn’t enough time. Neither was four. For someone who got in line at 7 a.m. Saturday for a 10 a.m. flight, there was little chance of making it on board.
After waiting close to 4 1/2 hours outside and inside the Southwest terminal Saturday, passengers were met with another line at 11:30 a.m.: the one at the gate to rebook or fly standby on one of the sold-out flights later in the day. One desk in the B Terminal was 30-people deep.
Those at concourses D and E sang a different tune with virtually no lines.
Miriam Gardsbane arrived at 11 a.m. for a 2 p.m. flight to Texas. The 23-year-old Baltimorean had only one thing to say when she saw the open security lines at checkpoints D and E on Saturday: “#FlyDelta.”
Naomi Rasmussen, 40, arrived at the airport four hours early with her family. It was a relief to see Delta Airlines in Concourse D not having such problems.
“We drove up and we saw the really, really long lines, but we drove past them and Delta had no line at all,” Rasmussen said.
No line for security. No line to check bags.
“We just walked right in. There was literally no one there,” she said.
Rasmussen spoke to TSA agents who said they’ve been putting in their preference to work Concourse D because Delta Airlines has been “treating them right” during the shutdown.
“It makes me feel good that they’re taking care of the people when they’re in this really difficult situation,” said Rasmussen, a frequent Delta flyer.
She was filling the time working while her kids and their friend were playing. Rasmussen’s father, who dropped them off at the airport, got a warning. He and two other family members are flying with American Airlines at 7 p.m. and likely won’t have the same fate as their children.
March 28 update: Officials say arrive at least 4 hours early to BWI
The wait outside and inside
The security line began at Door 1 around 8:30 a.m., snaking three times up and down the terminal until travelers entered the airport through Door 10.
As travelers entered Door 10 just before 9 a.m., a woman asked, “How long?” It would be another hour in a line she’d already been in for an hour — a two-hour-long line on the sidewalk outside the airport terminal.
“Noted,” the woman said, sounding slightly defeated. The line inside was no shorter, though warmer. An airport worker asked if everyone was flying Southwest or American Airlines and, if so, “unfortunately, you’re in the right line.”
Airport and airline officials passed out water to passengers in line. A speaker blasted music near the Concourse C entrance as workers sang along. Those most impacted by long lines were at concourses A, B and C, officials said.
“We have not previously experienced checkpoint wait times similar to what we are seeing this morning,” officials said in a post on social media.
Travelers braced against the cold as they stood outside for security screening ahead of spring travel.
Massive lines snaked outside the airport for the third time this week as travelers continued to arrive three hours ahead of their departure. Parents began sending their children inside for warmth as they waited in line at Concourse C amid the morning’s 30-degree weather.
Jessica Moulhern’s two kids were troopers, though, waiting patiently with her and her husband for about two hours.
“We are on hour three now,” she said, pushing a stroller as her other kid walked ahead of her.
The Moulherns arrived at 5:50 a.m. for their 8:40 a.m. Southwest flight to Jacksonville, Florida. They were told to expect two more hours before they even made it to security. The family was still outside when they received an alert from Southwest that the flight had begun boarding.
Moulhern called the airline to try to get to the next flight at noon, but that one was full, she said. They booked a flight that leaves at 5 p.m. and were on standby for earlier ones.
Ashley Hulting and her family got in line just before 5 a.m. for their Southwest flight to Tampa, Florida, that was scheduled for 8:20 a.m. The family of seven expected waiting for possibly three hours, and all of them got TSA Clear, which many have lauded as a winner in this week’s airport chaos, to prepare.
“When we got here, Clear had been shut down by the airport,” Hulting said.
Dean, the BWI spokesperson, said security checkpoints A and B were also closed Saturday morning. The family’s flight took off without them aboard, and they still had an additional two-hour wait once they got inside BWI.
Hulting tried calling Southwest to get travel credits or rebook their flight, but she couldn’t get in touch with an agent. Because flights were filling up fast, Hulting decided to book new travel plans to a different airport in Sarasota, Florida.
“We all spent money on Clear for nothing,” Hulting said.
Southwest Airlines, which has a hub at BWI, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on how it is accommodating travelers who miss their flights. FlightAware, the flight tracking data firm, showed around 40 delays at BWI on Saturday morning.
Martin Louamou, from BWI operations, had been outside directing foot traffic since 3 a.m., holding a sign that said “end of the line.” He gave people the unfortunate news that the line, snaking three lines deep along the sidewalk, was 3-4 hours long to the gate.
People were being polite and the line kept moving, but “they are worried they are going to miss their flights,” Louamou said. All he could tell them was to check with their airlines.
Saturday’s travel nightmare at BWI follows a hectic Friday that included a temporary ground stop. An odor at a shared air traffic control center for the second time this month caused a brief ground stop at BWI, Reagan National Airport and Dulles International Airport, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. The FAA did not immediately respond to requests for more information.
The sudden ground stop exacerbated travel woes as TSA agents across the country continuously called out amid the DHS shutdown that has cost them a month of missed pay.
Thousands of unpaid TSA workers are calling out and more than 500 have quit, according to the Department of Homeland Security.
The U.S. Senate approved Homeland Security funding early Friday that would have paid TSA agents, but House Republicans rejected the measure. The deal did not include immigration enforcement operations at the heart of the budget impasse.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Friday to pay TSA workers as early as Monday.
“We are grateful to President Trump for taking action to help fund and pay TSA employees after more than 40 days without a paycheck,” DHS acting Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis said Saturday.
The national callout rate for TSA workers on Saturday reached 12.35%, the highest of the shutdown, according to DHS officials. BWI had among the highest callout rates at 35.6%
- William P. Hobby Airport (Houston): 46.8%
- George Bush Intercontinental Airport (Houston): 44.5%
- Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport: 42.4%
- John F. Kennedy International Airport (New York): 38.9%
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport: 38.4%
- BWI: 35.6%
- Philadelphia International Airport: 29.6%
- Pittsburgh International Airport: 24.1%
- LaGuardia Airport (New York): 23.6%
- Reagan National: 23.0%
- Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport: 22.7%
This article has been updated.
Banner photographer Jerry Jackson contributed to this story.
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