Desperate passengers now paying $65 an hour for airport 'line standers'

Passengers stand in line at Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport (BWI), in Baltimore, Maryland, U.S., March 27, 2026. REUTERS/Daniel Heuer

The Washington Post reports the partial government shutdown under President Donald Trump is driving airline passengers to dig even further into their pockets to grab a plane.

“I’ve seen parts of the airport now that I didn’t even know existed,” said Steven Dial, a Houston resident who accepts payment for standing for hours in notorious airport lines resulting from unpaid YSA workers quitting or staying home for lack of pay.

Dial told the Post that his job standing in line began at 6:30 a.m.

“While the vast majority of travelers have braved lines or missed flights, grimacing at the lemons they were served, some entrepreneurs have set up their own proverbial lemon stands,” reports the Post, adding that New York-based line waiting service Same Ole Line Dudes, typically charges $35 per hour, plus a $15 fee if the job starts before 7 a.m.

“This just seemed like a perfect extension of what I was already offering,” Dial told the Post, which reports he was “charging $65 an hour, plus airport parking” on Friday.

Eight hours after his first job Dial said he was on to his next client and line. When clients arrive, they check in their bags and then trade places with him near the ticketing area.

It’s a pricey way to circumvent whole hours of waiting while legislators and Trump resolve the shutdown, which has deprived TSA workers of at least two paychecks since mid-February. The resulting staff shortage, according to the Post, sent airport security lines at Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport wrapping around the building’s exterior.

By late Friday, even White House reporters were losing patience with Republican House leaders stalling a shutdown resolution by rejecting a bipartisan deal from the Senate.

“… [T]he American people are just sick and tired of every one of you, both Republicans and Democrats, coming to this podium and blaming the other side,” one reporter told House Speaker Mike Johnson after Johnson announced GOP leadership’s refusal to take up the Senate deal. “People have been standing in lines three, four, five hours at a time. There's TSA workers that are selling their plasma. At what point is a leader on either side going to stand up and say, we have a path forward that everyone will agree to? This vote today will extend the shutdown under any circumstance.”

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