TSA Reports Reduced Wait Times At Chicago's Airports

CHICAGO (CBS) -- As Chicago's airports prepare for a busy holiday travel weekend, the agency in charge of security there is reporting an improvement in the time in takes to pass though checkpoints.

At the request of the city, the TSA issued a performance report showing that wait times during the peak travel period at O'Hare was 42 minutes last week, down from 105 minutes earlier in May.

The time at Midway declined from 65 minutes to 44 minutes.

The report did not specify what the TSA means by "peak travel time."

Passengers packed Terminal 3 at O'Hare this morning, CBS 2's Lauren Victory reports.

Passengers there were reporting wait times of around 45 minutes this morning.

Frequent traveler Bryce Schafer said he noticed a difference Friday.

"There just seems to be a lot better flow and people answering questions and kind of knowing where everything is supposed to be going," he said.

Meantime, the TSA says 1,400 officers were deployed at O'Hare last week, compared with 1,368 earlier in the month.

The staffing levels essentially remained unchanged at Midway--303 agents last week, compared with 304 during the first two weeks of the month.

Over Memorial Day weekend, the City Of Chicago says it anticipates nearly 1.7 million passengers will travel through O'Hare and Midway International Airports.

Those numbers are similar to previous years.

"We want passengers at O'Hare and Midway to be safe and secure, and their experiences to be speedy and smooth," Mayor Rahm Emanuel said in a statement. "As the past week has proven, we can work towards achieving both of these goals with the right resources and the right management.

"TSA has a lot more work to do to ensure that this problem is finally and fully fixed both in the short and long term. As the summer approaches, we are closely monitoring our security resources and the TSA wait times, and working with our federal partners to ensure that the lines continue to head in a better direction."