1,110 Tsa officers quit as shutdown ends after 75 days
tsa staffing took a hit during the 75-day Department of Homeland Security shutdown, with more than 1,110 TSA officers quitting since Feb. 14. The shutdown ended on Thursday, but airport security lines and staffing gaps may keep rippling through travel for months.
Jacobson on the departure rate
Sheldon Jacobson, an aviation security and safety expert at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, said the pace of departures has been far above TSA’s normal attrition. TSA reported an officer attrition rate of about 8.6% in 2024, which Jacobson said works out to roughly 11 officers quitting each day. He said the shutdown-era total of 1,110 departures since Feb. 14 averages out to about 15 people per day.
“It doesn’t mean that every day has that number—some days will have two, some days will have 12—but it averages out over any extended period to around 11 people per day,” Jacobson said on Wednesday. “When you go from 830 people [on] April 20 to now 1,110, that rate is now over 30 per day.”
DHS staffing gaps and airport delays
TSA agents were required to keep working during the lapse in appropriations even if they were not receiving paychecks because they were considered essential workers. Many staffers called out to take other paying jobs, and lengthy delays followed at airports during the shutdown. Security wait times appeared to ease at several airports in the days after TSA officers began receiving their paychecks.
DHS said earlier this week on X that more than 1,000 TSA agents had left their jobs and warned that the loss had significantly decreased TSA’s ability to meet passenger demand and left critical gaps in staffing ahead of the FIFA World Cup and summer travel. President Donald Trump ordered DHS and the Office of Management and Budget last month to use existing funds to pay TSA staffers.
Training lag for new hires
The departures do not end with the shutdown. New TSA hires need 4-6 months of training before they can perform regular airport duties, so the agency cannot refill those losses overnight. Jacobson said the recent pace of departures is a major break from the earlier trend, adding, “Now we’re getting into significant reductions in permanent staff. That’s a problem.”
He added, “And that will have long-term implications for TSA—not just today, but in three months, four months,” a timeline that leaves airports carrying the effects into the spring and summer travel period. Daniel Bubb, a commercial aviation historian, former airline pilot, and professor in residence, is also part of the discussion around how long the shutdown’s toll may last.
