The US airports with the longest and shortest security wait times — ranked

• Travel Bulletin analyzed average TSA wait times and passenger volumes at the 50 busiest US airports.
• Passengers at New York's JFK Airport have the longest average security wait times at 23.1 minutes.
• San Antonio International has the shortest average TSA wait time at 3.7 minutes.

Is your average airport security experience a quick walk through the screening area, or does the line often snake around multiple stanchions? The answer depends on where you're flying out of.

At the top 50 busiest airports in the US, the average security line wait time is 9.9 minutes, but TSA data shows that passengers can wait almost three times as long at some airports and as little as a few minutes at others.

The Trump administration is pushing to privatize airport security by expanding the TSA's Screening Partnership Program (SPP), which allows airports to use private contractors for screening instead of federal TSA officers.

The push comes as the agency has faced retention and workplace challenges, exacerbated by government shutdowns in 2025 and 2026 that forced TSA officers to work without pay for weeks.

Travel website Travel Bulletin examined the 50 busiest airports in the US to determine the ones with the longest and shortest average wait times. Travel Bulletin analyzed eight weeks of wait-time estimates from the MyTSA app and passenger-volume data from the FOIA Electronic Reading Room, covering mid-June to mid-August 2026.

Passengers traveling through San Francisco and Kansas City — the only two major SPP airports among the 20 total using private screeners — spend among the least amount of time in line.

Here are the 10 airports with the shortest average TSA wait times, followed by the 10 airports with the longest average waits.

1. San Antonio International Airport — San Antonio, Texas

Average wait time: 3.7 minutes

2. Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport — Kenner, Louisiana (tie)

Average wait time: 4.1 minutes

2. William P. Hobby Airport — Houston, Texas (tie)

Average wait time: 4.1 minutes

4. Kansas City International Airport — Kansas City, Missouri

Average wait time: 4.2 minutes

5. San Francisco International Airport — San Francisco, California

Average wait time: 4.5 minutes

6. Pittsburgh International Airport — Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Average wait time: 4.6 minutes

7. Southwest Florida International Airport — Fort Myers, Florida (tie)

Average wait time: 5.4 minutes

7. Nashville International Airport — Nashville, Tennessee (tie)

Average wait time: 5.4 minutes

9. Chicago Midway International Airport — Chicago, Illinois

Average wait time: 5.7 minutes

10. Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport — Hebron, Kentucky

Average wait time: 5.9 minutes

41. Philadelphia International Airport — Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Average wait time: 12.9 minutes

42. Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport — Dallas, Texas

Average wait time: 13 minutes

43. San Diego International Airport — San Diego, California

Average wait time: 13.2 minutes

44. Portland International Airport — Portland, Oregon

Average wait time: 13.4 minutes

45. George Bush Intercontinental Airport — Houston, Texas

Average wait time: 13.6 minutes

46. Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport — Atlanta, Georgia

Average wait time: 14.1 minutes

47. Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport — Anchorage, Alaska

Average wait time: 16.3 minutes

48. Newark Liberty International Airport — Newark, New Jersey

Average wait time: 17.9 minutes

49. Chicago O'Hare International Airport — Chicago, Illinois

Average wait time: 20.2 minutes

50. John F. Kennedy International Airport — New York, New York

Average wait time: 23.1 minutes

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