Thousands of people packed into the entrance of the Atlanta airport. Lines of people trying to get through security zig-zagged across the floor with no clear beginning or destination. The actual security line snaked around baggage claim and spilled into the airport entrance. The few staff members on hand looked just as stumped and frantic as the people in line.

Freshmen Margaret Runge and Bristol Whitley, sophomore Grace Brennan, and junior Mary Hannah Runge went through Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport in their attempts to return to campus from spring break.

“It was hard to find where the line even started, and you had no hope of seeing the end of it,” Margaret Runge said. “At one point when Grace, Mary Hannah, and I finally found where the line started, we encountered people who had somehow waited in line only to end up at the very beginning.” 

A vast number of Hillsdale students’ spring breaks aren’t complete without a visit to the airport, as 77% of the student body hails from outside of Michigan, according to the college’s website. But after experiencing firsthand the recent crises surrounding the Transportation Security Administration, many are wishing it wasn’t so. 

Runge waited in line with her sister Mary Hannah Runge and Brennan, arriving at the airport two hours before her flight’s boarding time of 8:22 a.m. After two hours of waiting in a line that resembled utter chaos, security scanners were still nowhere in sight. 

Brennan ended up driving to Michigan after waiting for two-and-a-half hours and missing her flight, not wanting to go through the wait again. The two Runges braved out the line, eventually getting through security after three hours, but not without nearly losing their belongings in the X-ray scanners. 

By the time the Runges made it to the gate, their flight had already taken off. Luckily, they were able to get on another flight, which got them to Detroit just two hours after their initial landing time. 

“I was literally the last person to get scanned on for standby for that flight, by the grace of God,” Margaret Runge said.

Whitley, despite being in the same airport, had a different experience. Her original flight was scheduled for 9:15 a.m. on Saturday, March 21, and she arrived two hours early for it. After finally making it to her gate at 10:30 a.m. and learning her flight got cancelled, she got a seat on a flight leaving at 9:15 a.m. Sunday March 22.

“I used the international security line that day, which ended up being closed to domestic flyers later in the morning, and made my gate in plenty of time,” Whitley said. “That flight was then cancelled most likely due to a lack of air traffic control personnel.”

Whitley instead drove nearly 11 hours back to Hillsdale, making it to campus on Monday, March 23 and missing all of her classes.

Thanks to a partial government shutdown that began Feb. 14, TSA agents were left without pay for over a month and a half, finally receiving a retroactive paycheck this past Monday after an executive order by President Donald Trump. Some airports experienced agent call-out rates upwards of 40-50% during the pay drought, according to Yahoo!Finance. In large airports such as Hartsfield-Jackson and George Bush Intercontinental in Houston, Business Insider reported wait times as climbing upwards of four hours. 

Inside the LaGuardia Airport the morning of March 22, freshman Cam Sellers found himself running to make his 6 a.m. flight back to Detroit after arriving at 4:30 a.m. 

“I barely made my flight,” Sellers said. “I got to security and got through at 5:49. I then had to sprint and get a ride from a janitor to make it to my gate at 5:55, and then me and some other people had to beg to be let on the plane, which had miraculously not detached from the gate.”

Later that day, a plane landing at LaGuardia collided with a fire truck on the runway, killing both pilots and hospitalizing more than 40 of the 72 passengers.

“The TSA agents were stressed and maybe rushing people through security, and overall everyone was stressed and it just wasn’t a good environment,” Sellers said of the atmosphere at LaGuardia. “If air traffic control was anything like TSA, there was probably a lot of stress and understaffing up there too.”

A stalemate over immigration law enforcement left the Department of Homeland Security without funding on Feb. 14, causing the air travel crisis. The resulting partial government shutdown is still ongoing, though TSA agents have finally been paid and security wait times have improved. In particular, the debate centers on attempts to reform Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration sent ICE agents into many airports last week in the wake of the TSA agent shortage. Amidst ongoing concerns about airport safety, this has only garnered even greater public outcry. ICE agents are still deployed in the major airports as TSA staffing is beginning to stabilize. 

Runge said she was concerned about the effectiveness of security checkpoints.

“I didn’t feel ‘in danger,’ but with that many people passing through security, it did make me wonder how thorough security can really be,” she said. 

Whitley, a Georgia resident, counts herself lucky to be able to take a road trip home once the school year comes to a close.

“Suffice it to say I’m grateful I’ll be driving home at the end of the semester,” she said.