LOUISVILLE, Ky. — If you are catching a flight out of the Louisville Muhamad Ali International Airport (SDF) soon, you may want to get there a few hours early.
Kentuckiana travelers say TSA lines have stretched into the hallways over the past three days, forcing some to apply for precheck while others nearly missed their planes.
"Very frustrating. Something that could have been prevented easily," passenger Joshua Jopling said.
Jopling says his wife spent more than an hour in line Monday morning.
He says wait times were so atrocious, employees began finding new flights for passengers. He adds he and his wife also missed their flight two weeks ago despite arriving at the airport's checkpoint two hours early.
"It just tells me that someone isn't taking care of their customers. People depend on the airport to get to where they need to go, and if they're missing their flights, it's going to cause major trouble," Jopling said.
The Louisville Regional Airport Authority points to summer travel as the reason for the delay. Officials said traveling is up 22% from last year, and the busiest time to catch a flight is from 6 a.m. to 8 a.m.
However, Jopling says a TSA supervisor told him it's because officials only have five security lanes when there should be 10.
The airport authority says they plan to add a sixth lane in August and two more next year. But Jopling says if things continue, the city may need to step in before travelers find other options.
"To get to an airport three hours early for a simple domestic flight is unacceptable," he said. "We won't fly out of Louisville in the foreseeable future if we have to. We'll even drive to Chicago or Nashville just to make sure we can make our flights and future connections."
Anyone departing from SDF between 6 a.m. and 8 a.m. this summer is strongly encouraged to arrive two and a half hours before their scheduled flight.
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