Lines through security at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport snaked into baggage claim and even outside into below-freezing temperatures Tuesday morning as a series of events converged.
It was the morning after nearly 80,000 college football fans packed into downtown Atlanta for the national championship game, the day after the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend, the beginning of business travelers' work week, as well as the morning before an afternoon snowstorm forecast.
More than 200 flights were canceled as of about 4:30 p.m., just under 10% of Hartsfield-Jackson departures and arrivals, according to FlightAware data, many driven by winter weather in Houston and across the Gulf Coast. More than 80 in and out of ATL were cancelled for Wednesday.
While the waits had calmed down by early afternoon, travelers on social media Tuesday morning posted videos and photos of lines stretching through the terminal, baggage claim and out the doors.
Some offered advice to drive to the international terminal’s shorter lines. Many expressed frustration about why the airport was not better prepared to handle the expected crush from a game that has been in the works for years.
“I have never in my life seen a scene like that one at any airport at any time, ever. I fly almost weekly. It was a complete, dysfunctional mess,” said Ross Dellenger, senior college football reporter with Yahoo Sports. He told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution he waited 90 minutes in the PreCheck line and made his flight by about eight minutes.
Several friends missed their flights after waiting for up to two hours, he said.
By about 1 p.m., Greg Keller told the AJC the line was “moving pretty quick” and it only took him 15-20 minutes to get toward the front.
ATL’s own security wait time estimates peaked in the morning at 75 minutes for standard and 90 minutes for PreCheck by about 9:30 a.m. Volumes appeared to have damped by about noon, but the airport’s wait time tracking infrastructure isn’t always accurate.
Michael Stillman said he waited in the Clear PreCheck line in Atlanta for an hour and 45 minutes Tuesday morning trying to get home to Chicago with his family after cheering on Notre Dame.
The wait was the “most miserable experience ever and I travel a lot,” he told the AJC. Travelers should have been advised to arrive more than three hours early, he said.
With the big game, “you would think (the airport) would be better prepared.” The experience “made the Notre Dame loss for me that much tougher,” he added.
TSA spokesperson Mark Howell told the AJC the agency was prepared, all lanes are open and the airport is fully staffed. They expect more than 93,000 screenings in ATL Hartsfield-Jackson on Tuesday, which isn’t even in the top 10 days of the year at the world’s busiest airport.
But he said the waits were being driven by particularly high PreCheck volume — and by people arriving earlier than expected for their flights.
“Everybody heard the message to get there early, and some people got there real early. The arrival patterns are way off,” Howell said. “That’s the one thing that’s hard to control: when people come.”
The exact same thing happened to cause long waits after the 2019 Super Bowl, he said.
Indeed, the airport had warned travelers to plan to arrive early Tuesday and Wednesday. Delta Air Lines has been generally advising travelers to arrive at ATL Hartsfield-Jackson around three hours early due to parking construction.
Howell said agency staff had opened the highest percentage of domestic PreCheck lines ever at Atlanta as of about 9:30 a.m.: 25 of 37 lanes in the domestic terminal. That had dropped to 18 of 37 lanes by about noon, as the standard/PreCheck demand shifted.
“It’s a balancing act to make sure we can get those folks through as quickly and efficiently as we can with the amount of volume we’re seeing in the morning,” Howell said.
Howell advised people traveling in the afternoon to only arrive about two hours before their departures so as not to disrupt the anticipated flow.
He understands, however, that that’s a “hard sell” to passengers.
This story has been updated with additional details throughout.
Ben Hendren contributed reporting.
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