Think the biggest, busiest airports have the worst security lines? The numbers say it’s not that simple. In an analysis of the 50 busiest U.S. airports, the average TSA wait came to 9.9 minutes, but travelers at the slowest checkpoint waited more than six times as long as those at the fastest.
We pulled the six fastest and the ten slowest from that analysis and counted up from the quickest to the slowest. Along the way, a hub famous for chaos isn’t even close to the worst, a nearly empty airport beats Los Angeles for the longest line, and two studies give wildly different answers for the same airport. Start with the one that left every giant in the dust.
#16 – San Antonio: The 3.7-Minute Checkpoint That Beat Every Giant
The fastest security line in the country isn’t at a megahub. San Antonio International had the shortest average TSA wait of the 50 airports analyzed, at just 3.7 minutes. That’s about the time it takes to find your ID, locate your boarding pass and remember which pocket your phone is in.
Texas has two enormous airports that soak up most of the attention, and San Antonio sits quietly in their shadow. The numbers suggest that was a good deal for travelers. A typical San Antonio passenger waited about a sixth as long as one at the slowest airport on this list. That gap is the whole reason this ranking exists.
- Average wait: 3.7 minutes
- Rank among 50 airports: fastest
The next two airports share something that surprised us even more, and it starts with a tie…
#15 – New Orleans: The Party City With a Surprisingly Quick Exit
You’d expect a tourist magnet to clog its own checkpoints. Instead, Louis Armstrong New Orleans International averaged just 4.1 minutes, tied for second-fastest in the analysis. Visitors heading home after a long weekend of beignets and brass bands get one last break.
This is a destination airport, packed with leisure travelers who may not fly often. Common wisdom says that should slow things down. The data says otherwise. New Orleans tied with Houston Hobby for the second-fastest average in the entire study. The analysis doesn’t explain why, and we won’t pretend to know.
That tie leads straight to its partner, and it involves a city with two very different airports…
#14 – Houston Hobby: The Smaller Airport Locals Quietly Prefer
Houston has two major airports, and their security lines couldn’t be more different. William P. Hobby averaged 4.1 minutes. Its big sibling, George Bush Intercontinental, averaged 13.6.
That makes the larger airport’s average more than three times longer. Plenty of Houstonians already swear Hobby is the only sane choice, and on security time alone the numbers back them up. Same city, same TSA, and one airport’s line runs more than triple the other’s. Which one you book can matter more than most people realize.
Quick Compare
- Hobby: 4.1 minutes on average, tied for second-fastest of 50 airports
- Bush Intercontinental: 13.6 minutes on average, sixth-longest
- The gap: about 9.5 minutes, every single trip
Of course, speed isn’t everything. But the next airport suggests a shiny new building might help…
#13 – Kansas City: The Brand-New Terminal That Moves People Fast
Kansas City traded an old, sprawling layout for a single modern terminal, and security seems to have benefited. Kansas City International averaged 4.2 minutes. The new terminal opened in 2023, so the airport is still in its honeymoon years.
There’s another twist. Business Insider reported that Kansas City is one of the few big airports that use private screeners, part of a program covering about 20 airports nationwide. Those screeners work under TSA oversight, following TSA rules. Nobody has proven that’s the reason for the short lines, and the same report cautions against assuming it is.
Another airport in that private screener club sits on the next slide, and its numbers are even harder to explain…
#12 – San Francisco: A Huge Airport With a Tiny Wait
San Francisco isn’t small, and that’s what makes this entry hard to believe. SFO’s average of 4.5 minutes was the fifth-shortest of any airport in the analysis, even though it screens more than 3,300 passengers per hour. Very few airports that busy manage anything close.
Frequent flyers who swear SFO lines are brutal may be remembering a bad day, or older numbers. A separate 25-airport study listed SFO at around 16 minutes. Two datasets put the same airport more than three times apart. Methods differ, and so do the years, so any single ranking is a snapshot, not a verdict.
The fast group ends one airport later, and it’s the one nobody brags about…
#11 – Pittsburgh: The Quiet Overachiever That Closes Out the Fast Lane
Nobody posts airport hype videos about Pittsburgh, yet its checkpoint holds up. Pittsburgh International averaged 4.6 minutes, sixth-fastest in the analysis. Southwest Florida and Nashville tied just behind it at 5.4 minutes.
Every one of the six fastest airports averaged under five minutes. That’s the last of the good news. From here, the averages jump, and they don’t come back down.
At a Glance
- Fastest: San Antonio at 3.7 minutes
- Tied for second: New Orleans and Houston Hobby at 4.1
- Fourth: Kansas City at 4.2
- Fifth and sixth: San Francisco at 4.5, Pittsburgh at 4.6
- Next in line: Southwest Florida and Nashville, tied at 5.4
Now we cross over to the slow end, starting with a hub you’ve probably flown through…
#10 – Philadelphia: The Hub Where “About 13 Minutes” Is the Good News
Philadelphia opens the slow end of the ranking, and it’s the mildest of the ten. Its average wait was 12.9 minutes, tenth-longest in the study. That’s about three and a half times San Antonio’s number.
It’s also roughly three minutes above the 9.9-minute average for the 50 airports. The “best” of the slow ten still waits more than three times longer than the fastest airport in the country. Philadelphia is a major American Airlines hub, which means lots of connecting and local travelers all hitting the same checkpoints.
Next up is another American Airlines hub, and this one is huge in a way that has nothing to do with passengers…
#9 – Dallas Fort Worth: A Giant With a 13-Minute Wait
DFW is huge in every sense. It averaged 13.0 minutes at security, ninth-longest in the analysis. That’s a hair longer than Philadelphia’s, so the ranking here is tight.
The airport covers more land than Manhattan, and it’s American Airlines’ largest hub, spread across five terminals. Thirteen minutes on average sounds fine until you remember how many travelers pour through at once. Averages smooth over the spikes, like the morning departure waves when whole banks of flights leave together.
The next airport is the one you wouldn’t expect to find on a list like this…
#8 – San Diego: Compact, Scenic and Still Not Fast
San Diego isn’t a megahub, and its checkpoint didn’t get the memo. The airport averaged 13.2 minutes at security. That’s slower than plenty of airports that handle far more traffic.
San Diego’s airport sits on a tight footprint right by downtown, and it’s one of the more surprising names among the ten longest. It ranked as the eighth-longest wait among the 50 airports, and it’s nowhere near the nation’s busiest. The study doesn’t pin down the cause, so we won’t pretend it does.
The next airport has something to prove after a big facelift…
#7 – Portland: The Rebuilt Airport Fans Love and the Clock Doesn’t
Portland’s airport is a favorite among travelers who love its design. Yet PDX averaged 13.4 minutes at security, seventh-longest in the analysis. That surprises people who only know it for its charm.
The airport finished a major terminal rebuild in 2024. Whether that’s reflected in the figure isn’t clear from the study, so it stays an open question. A beloved airport can still land in the slow ten. The ranking only measures the checkpoint, not the carpet, the lighting or the coffee.
Worth Knowing
- Ranks #10 through #6 (Philadelphia, DFW, San Diego, Portland, Bush) all fall between 12.9 and 13.6 minutes
- That’s a spread of only 0.7 minutes across five very different airports
- Every one of them sits roughly three minutes or more above the 9.9-minute national average
- Atlanta, at 14.1, is the next step up
The next entry has a bigger problem, and it shows up in the headlines…
#6 – Houston Bush: The Airport That Hit Two Hours During a Shutdown
George Bush Intercontinental is a tale of two airports. Its average of 13.6 minutes looks tolerable on paper. The worst days tell a very different story.
In March 2026, security waits surged at multiple U.S. airports as staffing shortages tied to a partial government shutdown collided with spring break travel. Houston Airport System data showed waits of up to two hours at multiple terminals. An airport with a 13.6-minute average can still produce a two-hour line.
The next airport has the reputation, and that reputation is only half right…
#5 – Atlanta: The World’s Busiest Airport Isn’t Even the Worst Line
Atlanta carries a reputation for chaos. Hartsfield-Jackson averaged 14.1 minutes at security, fifth-longest in the analysis. That’s bad, but it isn’t the worst.
The airport has long held the title of the world’s busiest by passenger count, and it ranked fourth for passengers screened per hour. Atlanta moves enormous crowds through its checkpoints, yet a far smaller airport has a longer line. Its reputation is earned, just not in the way people assume.
The next entry flips the usual logic, because it barely has a crowd at all…
#4 – Anchorage: Almost No Crowd, Still a 16-Minute Line
This is the strangest result on the list. Ted Stevens Anchorage processes the fewest passengers per hour of any airport in the analysis, at 516.7. It still averaged 16.3 minutes at security.
That’s roughly one-eighth of Los Angeles’ hourly volume, and the line is longer than LAX’s. The least crowded airport in the study had the fourth-longest wait. Passenger volume clearly isn’t the whole story.
The top three are where the numbers get truly uncomfortable, starting with a New Jersey airport…
#3 – Newark: The Monday-at-Noon Trap
Newark has a notorious reputation, and the data gives it a harder edge. It averaged 17.9 minutes in the 50-airport analysis. That’s about five minutes better than JFK, which is not exactly a compliment.
Upgraded Points looked at a different, smaller group of 25 airports, and there Newark had the longest average of all. Its worst stretch was Monday between noon and 1 p.m., at around 60 minutes. Different studies, same conclusion: Newark is slow, and Monday midday is its worst hour.
Next is an airport that two different studies can’t agree on, and the gap is jaw-dropping…
#2 – Chicago O’Hare: The Airport That Two Studies Can’t Agree On
O’Hare is the most confusing entry on the list. It averaged 20.2 minutes at security, second-longest in the 2026 analysis. It also handles about 4,216.7 passengers per hour, third-highest in the study.
In 2024, a SOAX study reported that O’Hare had the shortest average TSA wait in the country, at just over 2 minutes. That analysis used Qsensor data covering 31 airports with over 10 million passengers in 2023. One study said two minutes. A newer one says 20. Different data, different years, wildly different answers.
The slowest checkpoint in the country is next, and the reason may not be what you’d guess…
#1 – New York JFK: The 23-Minute Line Nobody Can Escape
JFK has the longest average security wait of any airport in the analysis. It averaged 23.1 minutes, more than double the 9.9-minute average for the 50 airports.
It’s also one of the busiest checkpoints in the country. JFK screens about 4,282 passengers per hour, just behind LAX at 4,305.9, yet LAX isn’t among the slowest. JFK’s wait is more than six times San Antonio’s, while it handles almost the same hourly volume as the country’s biggest checkpoint. An earlier 25-airport study listed JFK at about 16 minutes, so the numbers aren’t unanimous. Still, every dataset keeps it near the top.
Why It Stands Out
- Longest average wait of all 50 airports: 23.1 minutes
- Hourly volume of about 4,282 passengers, nearly matching LAX’s 4,305.9
- More than six times the wait at San Antonio, the fastest airport at 3.7 minutes
- Even the older 25-airport study, at about 16 minutes, kept it in the slow tier
So the fastest airports, San Antonio, New Orleans and Houston Hobby, all beat five minutes, and the slowest, led by JFK and O’Hare, topped 20. The biggest surprise isn’t who is slow. It’s that volume doesn’t explain it, since tiny Anchorage ranks fourth-longest.
These are averages, not promises. The only line that counts is the one in front of you on your own day, and no ranking can predict that one.
