Ashtyn Asay If you’re flying out of Newark Liberty International Airport, you may want to give yourself a little extra time to get through security. A new study from Travel Bulletin ranked TSA wait times at 50 of the busiest airports in the U.S., and found that Newark has the third-longest average security wait in the country. According to the research, travelers at Newark Liberty wait an average of 17.9 minutes to get through TSA, nearly eight minutes longer than the national average. The only airports with longer average waits were John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York and Chicago O’Hare International Airport. Here’s a closer look at the findings.
Newark Airport Ranks Third for Longest TSA Wait Times
According to a study published by Travel Bulletin on Thurs, 8/27, Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR) ranked third among the 50 busiest U.S. airports for average TSA security wait times. The study found that passengers at Newark spend an average of 17.9 minutes waiting to get through security, nearly double the national average of 9.9 minutes.
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Newark was beaten out by just two airports: John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK), which took the top spot with an average wait of 23.1 minutes, and Chicago O’Hare International Airport (ORD), which came in second with an average of 20.2 minutes.
Newark also ranked eighth among the country’s busiest airports for TSA checkpoint traffic, processing approximately 3,000 passengers per hour.
What About Other Nearby Airports?
If you’re considering flying out of another airport to avoid those wait times, here’s how a few major airports nearby ranked. As previously mentioned, JFK had the longest average TSA wait in the country at 23.1 minutes, while Philadelphia International Airport (PHL) ranked No. 10, with an average wait of 12.9 minutes. LaGuardia Airport (LGA) in Queens had a considerably shorter average wait of 9.3 minutes, putting it below the national average.
How the Study Calculated Wait Times
To determine which airports had the longest security lines, Travel Bulletin analyzed TSA wait-time estimates and passenger-volume data from 50 of the busiest airports in the country. The research used TSA’s MyTSA app, which collects wait-time reports from travelers, to calculate average security wait times. It also pulled passenger throughput information from the TSA’s FOIA Electronic Reading Room to determine how many people passed through security checkpoints each hour.
Both sets of data covered an eight-week period from mid-June through mid-August 2026.
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The study found that passenger volume plays a role in traveler wait times, with each additional 1,000 passengers per hour generating nearly 2.3 additional minutes in line. However, this isn’t always the case. For example, San Francisco International Airport averaged a wait time of just 4.5 minutes despite processing more than 3,200 passengers per hour.
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