Chicago - A message from the station manager

The [Monday] Papers

By Steve Rhodes

“Marathon security lines over the weekend stranded dozens of people overnight at O’Hare International Airport because of missed flights, as a TSA staffing shortage continues to plague travelers nationwide, airline officials said,” the Tribune (and others) reports.

Transportation Security Administration lines were more than two hours long Sunday, causing 450 people to miss their flights, according to American Airlines spokeswoman Leslie Scott. Stranded passengers who couldn’t get on a later flight slept on cots at the American terminal.
The lines are being blamed on insufficient TSA staffing due to strengthened security measures, a higher-than-anticipated increase in air traffic and incorrect guesses about how many people would sign up for expedited screening. The situation has been accelerating for months – and is expected to get worse heading into the busy summer travel season.

Midway is no picnic, either.


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“The U.S. Department of Homeland Security will immediately increase the use of overtime and work to quickly bring in more screening officers to help alleviate long lines at airport security checkpoints, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said Friday,” CNN reports.
“But Johnson warned that longer wait times are inevitable during the busy summer travel season.”
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Not one to let a good crisis go to waste, methinks there are business opportunities to exploit here.
-> How about food trucks – okay, carts – in that part of the concourse? Who standing in line wouldn’t want elotes?
-> Stand-In Inc. We stand in line so you don’t have to.
-> Uber for airplanes: Long-distance road trips that get you there before flying, because flying has become the slowest way to get anywhere.
-> A better version of the TSA’s wait-time app, because obviously anyone could make a better version – and sell it for 99 cents in iTunes.
-> Airport Tinder. A new way to meet that cutie over by dere.
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“Airport security is a special kind of hell, and anyone who goes through it regularly knows it,” ZDNet notes. Here’s why.
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“The Transportation Security Administration is warning some travelers that they should show up three hours before their scheduled flights,” WKOW-TV in Madison reports. (So “W-Cow?”)
“This weekend people who were flying out of O’Hare and Midway say lines were out of control, hundreds of people deep. And that isn’t just the story in Chicago, but in lots of airports all across the country.”
Three hours? So the actual flight will be shortest (and most comfortable!) part of your trip.
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Syria’s Stateless Children
Kids who don’t count.
Chicago Book Expo Featuring Kenny Loggins
This is it.
White Sox Lose The Plot
Time to worry?
Polar Soler
George Sun sets.
Studebaker Is Back
The building, not the car.
Ban Beanball
Game doesn’t need this garbage.
The Weekend In Chicago Rock
Featuring: Replicant, Gary Numan, No Ritual, Snarky Puppy, Har Mar Superstar, Lincoln Durham, Babymetal, The Brian Jonestown Massacre, The Scissors, White Reaper, Mavis Staples, Youth Code, DevilDriver, Hard Working Americans, Allen Stone, Luther Dickinson, and the Punch Brothers.
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TweetWood
A sampling.


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The Beachwood Tip Line: Branding iron.

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Posted on May 16, 2016