Panicked travelers hear a new message from airports: Don’t get here so early

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Images of never-ending security lines at U.S. airports and frustrating tales of missed flights are pushing panicked travelers to show up way before their departures. But some airports where the wait times have been manageable are telling passengers to stop arriving so early.

In Ohio, John Glenn International Airport in Columbus says early birds — reacting to the funding standoff on Capitol Hill that’s creating crowded security checkpoints — are making things worse by creating bottlenecks during peak times.

“Arriving too early can actually create longer lines right when we open,” the airport said in a social media post Thursday. “Spacing out arrival times helps keep things moving smoothly for everyone.”

The airport even created a chart showing when to arrive: “90 minutes before departure is all you need.”

What's confusing for air passengers, though, is that it's hard to predict which airports will be plagued next by security lines spilling out of terminals.

The government shutdown straining Transportation Security Administration staffing has ballooned checkpoint wait times beyond two hours at some major airports. George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston has become the biggest chokepoint for travelers with four-hour security lines.

Those are by far the worst-case scenarios. Many airports — like the one in Ohio — have been seeing wait times comparable with those in normal times. That's why airlines say the best advice for passengers right now is to check TSA wait times before their scheduled departures.

In some ways, it’s a bit reminiscent of the days of “ panic buying ” during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

“It’s human nature. You don’t have control over what’s going on at an airport,” said Shari Botwin, a Philadelphia clinical social worker who counsels people about anxiety.

“There’s so much media attention about the chaos at airports,” she said. “They might not trust when someone says, ’Well, you don’t need to come out early anymore.'"

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Associated Press reporter Ed White in Detroit contributed.