Security lines at Cleveland Hopkins are going from bad to worse
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Passenger traffic is soaring at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport, and so are TSA wait times.
State of play: Cleveland.com's Susan Glaser reported last week that travelers have waited up to 90 minutes to pass through airport security as the South Checkpoint line snakes through the terminal.
What they're saying: TSA says it strives to maintain wait times under 10 minutes for TSA PreCheck and under 30 minutes for everyone else.
Reality check: In Cleveland, they're falling far short of their standards.
💠Sam's thought bubble: I can corroborate.
- Cleveland's perpetually understaffed checkpoints are, by orders of magnitude, more sluggish than any other American city I've traveled to.
- When my wife and I flew to Florida in February, it took us 40 minutes to pass through the South Checkpoint. (I timed it.)
The intrigue: Short of increased staffing or a physical redesign, these wait times probably won't improve anytime soon, especially with the introduction of 10 nonstop routes from Frontier Airlines, beginning this week.
By the numbers: Some 9.9 million passengers traveled through Hopkins in 2023, up 13.5% from 8.7 million passengers in 2022.
- In January, February and March 2024, year-over-year passenger numbers have been roughly 10% higher than the same period in 2023, per Hopkins.
Between the lines: Recent data gathered by the Data Liberation Project analyzed by Axios shows that monthly passenger complaints at Hopkins (25.5 per 100,000 passengers) far exceeds the national average.
- Across airports, the TSA PreCheck program is the most common target of complaints, followed by issues with customer service and screening.
📬 Hit reply to this email to let us know if you've traveled recently and experienced longer-than-usual waits.
- Are you arriving earlier or altering your travel plans to compensate?