ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) — Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents who have been working without pay since Feb. 14 began receiving backpay on Monday.

With funding for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) stalled due to a partial government shutdown, President Trump signed an executive order on Friday instructing the agency to pay TSA workers immediately. It remains to be seen what sort of impact that will have on Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, which has been plagued with long lines for much of the partial government shutdown.

TSA workers will get two full missed paychecks from March, but not the partial missed payment from February.

On Monday, the world’s busiest airport saw relatively shorter lines than those in recent weeks.

Nisa Moman, traveling out of Atlanta, said she expected complications — and was surprised by how quickly she moved through.

“I’m really happy because I can just go straight through TSA and get back home,” she said.

Atlanta News First was on the scene and saw busy travelers freely moving through checkpoints as well as ICE agents still on hand Monday to help with crowd control and security.

Much of the travel chaos will be determined by how many TSA workers will continue to not come to work. Atlanta’s TSA callout rate has hovered around 40% over the past week.

A traveler at the Atlanta airport said the pay issue had put frontline workers in an unfair position.

“They take the brunt of a lot of people and their opinions and their bad days,” Tyler Black, traveling out of Atlanta, said. “So I think this has been an eye-opening experience for everybody and it shows that we need to take care of these people.”

As of Monday, the shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security—which began on Feb. 14—has reached 45 days, making it the longest in U.S. history.

Travelers are advised to take several measures to ensure they don’t miss their flights:

• Arrive three or four hours ahead of your flight.
• Sign up for expedited travel programs like TSA PreCheck and CLEAR+.
• Check real-time wait times using the MyTSA app.

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