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CCIA flyers say shutdown didn’t disrupt travels

Posted at 4:30 PM, Jan 11, 2019
and last updated 2019-01-11 20:15:16-05

Today is the first payday where many federal employees will miss their checks because of the government shutdown.

Included on that list are Transportation Security Administration employees across the nation and at Corpus Christi International Airport. However, TSA workers at Corpus Christi International Airport continue to show up to work without pay.

“That’s just crazy to me,” said Brenda Sandoval, a CCIA traveler. “Nobody wants to work for free.”

“It’s just a tragedy to put federal employees in that position,” said Quinton Hudgens, another CCIA traveler.

In a statement from TSA, 5 percent its 51,000 employees did not show up to work on Wednesday. That’s compared to a year ago, when about 3.6 percent of workers did not show up.

The good news, many flyers say, is that the government shutdown has not impacted their traveling experience.

“They were there, doing their job,” said Hudgens.

Hudgens, who is a federal employee himself, was traveling from Washington D.C. He says he expected delays in getting through airport security because of the shutdown.

“That’s why I got there an extra hour early, but they [TSA employees] were doing a yeoman’s job to be under those circumstances.”

TSA said more than 99 percent of passengers waited less than 30 minutes to go through airport security on Wednesday and 94 percent waited less than 15 minutes.

A frequent flyer who was coming from Chicago says he didn’t notice any differences during his trip.

“It’s been fine,” traveler Matt Letendre said. “It’s really been no different than normal.”

Letendre and other travelers have gone out of their way to thank TSA employees during the shutdown, they say.

“I just took a couple extra minutes and told them all, ‘thank you for working without getting paid,'” he said. “And they just said ‘thank you and we appreciate that.'”