State of TSA: a week of US security lines
In the eight days from April 19 to April 26, 2026, FlightQueue logged 184,012 live TSA wait-time observations from airport-operator APIs at 41 major hubs. Here's what we found — including the worst single terminal in America, the day of week to fly, and the airport whose PreCheck line moved 7× faster than its standard one.
Published 2026-04-27 · By FlightQueue
Five things we learned
- 1
Across 184,012 live observations at 41 major airports, the median traveler in our window waited under 8 minutes — but the spread between the calmest and the worst airport was 6.5×.
- 2
Philadelphia (PHL) was the slowest US hub overall, averaging 14.9 minutes across all lanes — and 19.2 minutes in standard security alone, with Terminals B and D/E specifically averaging 38 minutes.
- 3
Mondays were the worst day of the week across all hubs (avg 10.1 min), while Wednesdays were the best (7.4 min) — a 36% swing for the same lane at the same hour.
- 4
The biggest single-airport spread was JFK Terminal 4 vs. Terminal 7: 29.1 minutes vs. 9.2 minutes for standard lines. Which terminal you depart from mattered more than which airport you flew out of.
- 5
TSA PreCheck cut the average wait from 7.8 → 4.9 minutes — a 37% reduction across all observed lanes.
The 10 slowest major hubs
Average wait across all observed lanes (standard + PreCheck), live data only, minimum 500 samples.
The five calmest hubs
Lowest average waits among major US hubs with at least 1,000 observations.
The day of week to fly
Average wait time across all 41 tracked hubs, regular lanes only. Mondays were 36% slower than Wednesdays.
Wait times across the week
National average per day, all lanes, all 41 hubs.
PreCheck vs. standard
All major hubs · Apr 19–26.
The terminal you pick matters more than the airport
Standard-line averages by terminal, same 8-day window. JFK Terminal 4 averaged 29.1 min while JFK Terminal 7 averaged 9.2 min — a 3× spread inside a single airport.
| Airport | Terminal | Std avg |
|---|---|---|
| JFK | Terminal 4 | 29.1m |
| JFK | Terminal 7 | 9.2m |
| PHL | Terminal B | 38m |
| PHL | Terminal D/E | 38m |
| PHL | Terminal A-West | 3m |
| EWR | Terminal C | 22.7m |
| EWR | Terminal A | 6.3m |
| LGA | Terminal C | 18m |
| LGA | Terminal A | 1.3m |
Stats you can quote
Tap any stat to copy it with a link back to this report.
PHL was the slowest major US hub in the week of April 19–26, averaging 19.2 minutes at standard security — with Terminals B and D/E both averaging 38 minutes. (Source: FlightQueue, 9,108 samples)
Mondays beat Wednesdays at TSA by 36%. Across 41 major airports, the average Monday wait was 10.1 min vs. 7.4 min on Wednesday. (Source: FlightQueue, 184k samples · Apr 19–26, 2026)
JFK Terminal 4 averaged 29.1 minutes at standard security last week. JFK Terminal 7 averaged 9.2 minutes. Which JFK terminal you fly from matters more than the airport itself.
TSA PreCheck cut average security waits from 7.8 → 4.9 min in the week of Apr 19–26 — a 37% reduction. (Source: FlightQueue, 184k live samples)
The single longest wait observed across 41 airports in the week of April 19–26 was 74 minutes at Miami International on April 23. (Source: FlightQueue)
Philadelphia, JFK, Newark, and Orlando were the four slowest standard-security lines among major US hubs in late-April 2026, all averaging 15+ minutes (PHL 19.2, JFK 17.2, EWR 16.1, MCO 15.4).
Pittsburgh and Chicago O'Hare averaged under 2.5 minutes at security in the week of April 19–26 — the calmest of any major hub we tracked.
Methodology
FlightQueue continuously polls public airport-operator APIs (Port Authority of NY & NJ, MIA SITA feed, GOAA, Houston Airport System, BWI, PHX, MSP, Vancouver/CATSA, Heathrow, Dublin, Berlin Brandenburg, Avinor, and others) for security wait times by terminal and lane type. Every reading is written to a single timestamped events table in our production database.
This study covers **184012 live observations** between **April 19 and April 26, 2026 (UTC)** — FlightQueue's first full week of cleanly-instrumented monitoring. Numbers exclude TSA historical-pattern estimates and crowd-sourced reports; only readings sourced directly from airport-operator APIs are included. Airports must have at least 100 observations in the window to appear in any ranking; rankings of "worst" and "best" airports use a stricter 500-sample minimum.
Wait-time readings reflect the line as reported by the airport's own sensors (camera-based throughput counters, Bluetooth/Wi-Fi triangulation, or staffed counts). They are not adjusted for time-of-day or traveler volume. PreCheck and Standard lanes are reported separately; figures labeled "Regular" or "Standard" exclude PreCheck/Clear lines.
This is the first installment of an ongoing quarterly series. Future editions will compare the same airports across longer time horizons.
For press
Cite this report as: "State of TSA: Spring 2026 — FlightQueue, April 27, 2026." Custom data pulls (per-airport, per-terminal, or longer time windows) are available on request. Press contact: press@flightqueue.com