ATLANTA — With Christmas now over, the world's busiest airport is seeing another major spike in holiday travel.
Lines to get toward security begin almost immediately as travelers entered the airport on Tuesday.
One group of travelers 11Alive spoke to said it took them an hour just to make it to the main security checkpoint. Others claimed they already missed their flight, stuck in a sea of people.
Officials from Hartsfield-Jackson International said 3.3 million passengers are traveling through the airport during this holiday stretch - which began on Dec. 22 and runs through Jan. 22.
Just Tuesday alone, the airport said it expected 90,000 passengers to make their way through Hartsfield-Jackson, with about 30,000 already through by noon.
TSA officials at Atlanta's airport said they noticed not just long lines at checkpoints but also check-in counters.
The reason for those long lines - other than the obvious hustle and bustle of the holiday season - can be attributed to a couple of factors, according to TSA:
- An unusual number of TSA employees apparently called out Tuesday
- Bad weather that affected Christmas day travelers has now spilled over into the next day
While it's typically encouraged to arrive two to even two and a half hours early for a flight at Hartsfield-Jackson, officials there said today passengers should plan on arriving three hours early.