Washington is a city that likes to fly a lot. With members of Congress and Hill staffers flying to every corner of the country, added to the travel habits of the rest of the D.C.-metro populace, it makes for some busy airports. As anyone who has traveled in the past five years knows, even arriving at the airport the recommended two hours early sometimes just doesn’t cut it. As the Washington Post reports today, don’t expect that trend to get any better, D.C.

The wait times at both Dulles and National have been steadily increasing over the past few weeks, and it’s not even Thanksgiving yet. While the average peak wait at Dulles was 25 minutes, at times the wait hits forty-five to fifty minutes or longer.

Transportation Security officials told the Post they thought the extra wait was caused by new rules regarding gels and liquids that began in August. The TSA has been trying to clear up the confusion with a few different approaches. They are considering pop-ups on the TSA website to alert people to restrictions, since people usually pay attention to the pop-up ads that spam filters miss. Also, their PR people have kicked off a “3-1-1” publicity campaign, to remind passengers that they can bring liquids in containers of three ounces or less if they are all in a single one-quart plastic baggie. Clear as mud, right?

We’d like to throw our own suggestion out there: If you mess up or don’t follow directions, you get sent to the back of the line. Who’d make that mistake twice? (Or, you know, they could just add more screening staff.)

Photo by maxedaperture