DTWDetroit Metro
How long is the TSA security line at DTW right now?
At 10:39 am Eastern every open standard lane at DTW is 10 minutes or under. The longest standard line is McNamara, 3 min.
Wait time by checkpoint
| Checkpoint | Standard | PreCheck |
|---|---|---|
| McNamara | 3min | no lane |
Read from news.delta.com at 17 minutes ago, next read in 3
How busy DTW security usually is
People screened per hour at each checkpoint, averaged over 175 days of TSA counts, 22 March to 24 October 2026. Green is that checkpoint's quiet hours, red its peak. Find your checkpoint and look along the row for green.
| Checkpoint | 4a | 6a | 8a | 10 am, now | 12p | 2p | 4p | 6p | 8p | 10p | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Blue-1 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Blue-2 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Red 1 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Red 2 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Red 3 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Red 5 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Red 6 |
Tap a cell for its count.
Quiet for this checkpointIts busiest hourclosed or no count
On the counted days DTW screened passengers from 3 am to 9 pm. Across DTW the busiest hour is 7 am and the counts fall away after 6 pm. Red 1, Red 2 and Blue-2 screen 58 percent of the people TSA counts at DTW, Red 1 alone 21 percent. Most checkpoints peak before noon; Red 3 runs the other way at 1 pm. TSA counts people, not minutes, so this shows when a checkpoint is loaded, not how long you will stand in it.
Which day DTW is busiest
Thursday is DTW's busiest day of the week, about 40,000 people screened on an average one, 29 percent more than Saturday, the quietest.
| Rank | Day | People a day | Days counted |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Thursday | 39,743 | 23 |
| 2 | Sunday | 39,135 | 23 |
| 3 | Friday | 38,681 | 23 |
| 4 | Monday | 37,444 | 23 |
| 5 | Wednesday | 33,989 | 25 |
| 6 | Tuesday | 31,694 | 23 |
| 7 | Saturday | 30,788 | 23 |
People screened at DTW on an average day of each kind, from TSA's counts, 22 March to 24 October 2026, with the days around each holiday left out.
Which month DTW is busiest
March was DTW's busiest month in TSA's counts, about 42,000 people a day, 24 percent more than April, the quietest. October, the latest month counted, ran 14 percent below March.
| Rank | Month | People a day | Days counted |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | March | 42,287 | 10 |
| 2 | July | 39,089 | 13 |
| 3 | October | 36,306 | 17 |
| 4 | August | 36,043 | 31 |
| 5 | June | 35,474 | 13 |
| 6 | May | 34,851 | 31 |
| 7 | September | 34,437 | 30 |
| 8 | April | 34,122 | 30 |
People screened at DTW on an average day of each month, holidays included, from TSA's counts, 22 March to 24 October 2026. March, June, July, and October rest on 10, 13, 13, and 17 counted days.
How DTW ran over the holidays
Each day around a holiday against the same day of the week in the three weeks either side, so the season does not read as the holiday. Thanksgiving and Christmas 2026 are not in TSA's counts yet; they run to 24 October 2026.
Memorial Day 2026
Thursday 21 to Tuesday 26 May: the busiest day was Thursday 21 May, 42,143 people, 7 percent above the Thursdays around it. Sunday 24 May was the lightest for its day of the week, 34 percent below the Sundays around it.
Labor Day 2026
Thursday 3 to Tuesday 8 September: the busiest day was Friday 4 September, 40,538 people, 10 percent above the Fridays around it. Sunday 6 September was the lightest for its day of the week, 28 percent below the Sundays around it.
Questions people ask
How busy is Detroit airport today?
At 10:39 am Eastern every open standard lane at DTW is 10 minutes or under. The longest standard line is McNamara, 3 min. By TSA's counts 10 am is usually a middling hour at DTW, about 2,000 people an hour across its checkpoints against 3,200 at the 7 am peak. On a normal day DTW screens about 36,000 people, 21st of the 432 airports TSA counts; its largest checkpoint is Red 1, with 21 percent of them.
Does PreCheck have a shorter line at DTW?
The DTW feed lists no open PreCheck lane at the moment; the sign above shows every lane it publishes.
Which DTW checkpoint is fastest right now?
At 10:39 am Eastern the shortest standard line is at McNamara, 3 min. The sign above lists every checkpoint and lane the airport publishes, longest and shortest alike.
How current is this number?
Delta Air Lines publishes the DTW wait times at news.delta.com and waittimes.io reads them every 10 minutes. The time on the sign is the last read, in Eastern time. A number older than 30 minutes says so, and a feed silent for 2 hours shows when it last published instead of a number. Nothing here is predicted.
When is TSA security at DTW quietest?
Over the 175 counted days, 22 March to 24 October 2026, DTW checkpoints screened the most people at 7 am. Between the rushes the counts are lowest at 9 am, and they fall away after 6 pm. Each row of the map above is one checkpoint scaled to its own peak, so its green hours are the ones to aim for. Counts say when a checkpoint is loaded, not how long the line is.
What time does TSA open at DTW?
Over the 175 counted days, 22 March to 24 October 2026, DTW screened passengers from 3 am to 9 pm. Blue-1, Blue-2 and Red 3 open first and Red 3 runs latest. These are the hours TSA counted people, not DTW's published checkpoint hours. Check the airport's own page before an early flight.
What is the busiest day of the week at DTW?
Thursday is DTW's busiest day of the week, about 40,000 people screened on an average one, 29 percent more than Saturday, the quietest. Averaged over 163 days of TSA counts, 22 March to 24 October 2026, with the days around each holiday left out.
Which month is busiest at DTW?
March was DTW's busiest month in TSA's counts, about 42,000 people a day, 24 percent more than April, the quietest. October, the latest month counted, ran 14 percent below March. Averaged over 175 days of TSA counts, 22 March to 24 October 2026. March, June, July, and October rest on 10, 13, 13, and 17 counted days.
How busy does DTW get on a holiday weekend?
Memorial Day 2026, Thursday 21 to Tuesday 26 May: the busiest day was Thursday 21 May, 42,143 people, 7 percent above the Thursdays around it. Sunday 24 May was the lightest for its day of the week, 34 percent below the Sundays around it. Labor Day 2026, Thursday 3 to Tuesday 8 September: the busiest day was Friday 4 September, 40,538 people, 10 percent above the Fridays around it. Sunday 6 September was the lightest for its day of the week, 28 percent below the Sundays around it. Each day is set against the same day of the week in the three weeks either side. Thanksgiving and Christmas 2026 are not in TSA's counts yet; they run to 24 October 2026.
Other airports
Every covered airport, ranked by its line right now, is on the national page, with the airports that have no live number here under it. The busiest airports by people screened lists every code TSA counts.
ATL, BOS, BWI, CLE, CLT, DAL, DCA, DFW, EWR, IAH, JAX, JFK, LGA, MCO, MIA, MSP, PHL, PHX, PIT, SEA, SFO, SLC
Where the numbers come from
- Wait times
- Published by Delta Air Lines at news.delta.com. We read the page every 10 minutes and show the time of the last read. A reading older than 30 minutes is marked as such.
- Usual busyness
- TSA's own hourly passenger counts per checkpoint, published weekly in its FOIA reading room. This page uses 175 days of counts, 22 March to 24 October 2026. Public domain.
- Who reads them
- Arcane Digital, which runs waittimes.io, reads every feed every 10 minutes with its own collector and stores the time of each read. The day's reads are checked every night for a feed that has stopped or thinned, and one person reads that report the next morning. Nobody types a number in.
- What we never do
- Predict a wait in minutes, or show an old number as if it were current.
- Every feed
- How each one is read, the TSA counts and who to write to: the sources page.