As Thanksgiving looms, nearly 40% of TSA employees remain unvaccinated. (Photo by Scott Olson)
Getty ImagesThere’s a perfect storm brewing for travelers ahead of Thanksgiving that threatens to make U.S. airports over the holiday weekend more chaotic than usual. Air travel is rebounding, with airport checkpoint screenings up to roughly 80% of pre-pandemic passenger levels, according to Transportation Security Administration (TSA) throughput data.
Busy travel weekends mean crowded airports. Online searches for holiday travel are up 105% in the last month, compared to just 51% over the same period in 2020, according to Hopper, which predicts that high demand will cause airfares to increase 40% between Halloween and the week of Thanksgiving.
But even before Thanksgiving, another big date is looming. November 22 is the deadline by which all federal employees must either be vaccinated against Covid-19 or submit to frequent coronavirus testing, per President Joe Biden’s vaccine mandate.
As of right now, the TSA appears to be way off target. “We have about 60% of our workforce has been vaccinated, that that number needs to go quite a bit higher over the next few weeks,” TSA Administrator David Pekoske told CNN last week.
Still, the agency is not hitting the panic button. “As we’ve seen across other sectors, we anticipate that the vast majority of TSA employees will get vaccinated,” said a TSA spokesperson via email. “Thousands of TSA employees upload their vaccination every week” using an online tool developed by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for personnel to report their current vaccination status.
“My understanding is that the current percentage reflects employees that TSA doesn’t yet have vaccination information on, and is not an accurate reflection of its vaccination rate,” suggested the spokesperson, noting that TSA personnel do not have government-issued equipment and there may simply be a lag in vaccinated employees not yet reporting their Covid status.
There are currently 337 TSA employees with active COVID-19 infections, according to the agency’s website. Since the beginning of the pandemic, TSA has cumulatively had 10,752 federal employees test positive for Covid-19. In addition, 30 TSA employees and two screening contractors have died after contracting the virus.
While the November 22 deadline is five weeks away, the options for unvaccinated TSA employees have already narrowed substantially. The double-dose Moderna vaccine is already off the table, given the four-week waiting period between doses and the two-week post-shot period to be considered “fully vaccinated.” Similarly, today is the last day someone could potentially receive the first dose of the Pfizer vaccine, wait the recommended three weeks between doses and then the two weeks after the second shot, in order to be deemed “fully vaccinated” by November 22.
That leaves the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine as the only remaining choice. TSA employees could get the J&J shot by November 8 to be considered “fully vaccinated” two weeks later, in time to meet the November 22 deadline.
A shortage of TSA employees for the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays would surely mean longer lines at the airport. But Pekoske told CNN he is “very hopeful” that there will not be worker shortages and said the agency is “building contingency plans” just in case.
In the meantime, the TSA says it is encouraging employees to get inoculated against Covid-19 and report their status through hosting employee town halls, sending broadcast emails, and posting details on the requirement in break rooms on how and where to upload documents for proof of vaccination status.
