Easing through NEO airports

If you fly in and out of Cleveland much, you know that the crowds for your flights--especially our hub airline Continental--can vary outrageously. Leaving at 6 am or 8 pm, you breeze through security, but leave when everybody else is and you can spend anywhere from 30 minutes to a couple of hours standing in line.

Makes it hard to estimate the time you have to leave the house or office. Naturally, you bring your laptop and/or cell phone so if you end up sitting there for an hour or more, you can be productive. But wouldn't it be nice to know ahead of time how much time you have to plan to spend in line or fill with work?

This tip from the National Association of Women Business Owners newsletter looks promising:

Several hours before your flight time--or the day before, because it gives you approximations based on historical, not actual passenger traffic data--visit http://waittime.tsa.dhs.gov/index.html. There you enter your state, name of your departure airport and the hour of your official time of departure. The site is supposed to give you the estimated security checkpoint wait time--when I tried it this morning it wasn't working.

If you like this idea, let's all email the folks at tsa-contactcenter@dhs.gov and ask them to get the site fixed.