Welcome to Gate C71, the insider briefing for travelers who refuse to be caught off guard. Every Friday, we share the TSA, airline, and airport updates most people never hear about, so you always know exactly what to do before you fly.

Hey, Megan here from Portable Professional. 👋

TODAY AT THE GATE

✓ The Spirit Shutdown Isn't Really About Spirit — The real disruption this summer isn't the airline you fly with, it's the security line you have to get through.

✓ Airlines Don't Want You Knowing These Flight Booking Hacks — The free tools that quietly save me hundreds on every flight

✓ Next Week's Video Sneak Peek — The in-flight mistakes most travelers don't even know they're making

✓ Travel Trivia Results — Over 53,000 of you guessed... and most got it wrong

✓ Important Travel Updates — JetBlue to fill Spirit’s shoes, the TSA staffing crisis continuing through summer, and a new in-flight rule catching travelers off guard

✓ A Quick Note Before You Go — The one thing most people miss after a week like this

At 3 AM on Saturday, May 2nd, an entire airline disappeared.

Tens of thousands of travelers had their plans upended overnight, and 17,000 jobs vanished with it.

But that's not the part of this story that's going to affect your next flight.

The same week Spirit went under, the longest government shutdown in U.S. history finally ended.

For 75 days, TSA officers worked without pay.

Hundreds were calling out because they couldn't afford the gas to get to the airport.

And by the time funding returned on Thursday, more than 1,100 of them had walked away, including about 300 in just the last two weeks.

To help put this into perspective, this is what 1,100 people look like…

Replacing those officers takes time.

Each new hire needs 4 to 6 months of training. And with the FIFA World Cup starting June 11 and summer travel set to be the busiest in years, the staffing shortage is likely to continue well into both.

BUT…

The biggest problem to solve is more about the things you do before, during, and after your trip, and less about the airline you fly with.

A few small things worth doing this week:

1. Check your airport's live TSA wait times before you leave the house.

Most major airports post them online or in their app. Atlanta, JFK, Houston, and New Orleans took the biggest staffing hits, so give yourself extra time if you're flying through any of those airports.

2. Add at least 30 minutes to your usual buffer.

Not the four-hour panic buffer from earlier this spring. Just 30 minutes more than felt normal in 2025. If 90 minutes was your domestic baseline, make it two hours.

3. If you've got summer travel in mind, book it now.

This is the first time in over 20 years that a major U.S. airline has shut down like this, so we're all guessing a bit at what comes next.

Most likely, the bigger airlines raise fares without the pressure from a major budget competitor, or another low-cost carrier like Frontier or Allegiant moves quickly to fill the gap.

Probably a combination of both. Either way, the cheap seats left for summer aren't going to last with fuel prices where they are.

Quick question:

Were you ever a Spirit flyer, or did you stay away from those bright yellow planes?

Hit reply and tell me which camp you were in. I'm curious where most of our community lands on this one!

Speaking of locking in summer flights before fares creep up...

In my most recent video, I reveal the booking strategies airlines genuinely don't want you to know about.

After 300+ of my own flights and testing every booking site out there, these are the seven money-saving tactics I actually use myself.

Here's a sneak peek:

✔️ The free tool that quietly does what Skyscanner, Hopper, and Kayak do, but better (and shows you when prices are actually high or low)

✔️ Why mixing two one-way tickets often beats a round-trip, and the kind of route where this trick pays off the most

✔️ The "positioning flight" strategy that can shave hundreds off a long-haul trip, even with the cost of the extra leg factored in

✔️ The little-known trick that lets you change your virtual location and unlock cheaper fares on the exact same flight (I saved $250+ on a Newark-to-Athens flight using this)

✔️ The post-booking habit that's gotten me hundreds back in refunds and credits, on flights I'd already paid for

These are the kinds of tricks that seem too small to matter... until you realize you just saved $200 on the same flight as the person sitting next to you.

🎥 Click here to watch the full video before your next flight!

Next week's video is all about the in-flight mistakes most travelers don't even know they're making.

Some are common sense once you hear them, but others are going to surprise you.

Like the "window seat" you can pay extra for that turns out to be... a wall?

Yes, really. And one of these in-flight mistakes is a habit so normal that almost every U.S. airline has quietly banned it in their fine print.

If you fly even once or twice a year, a few of these will save you a lot of discomfort.

🎥 Make sure you’re subscribed here so you don’t miss it!

I asked:

👉 “Where can you find the busiest cruise port in the world?”

With over 53,000 votes, here's how the answers stacked up:

💡Fun Fact:

Port Canaveral just barely edged out PortMiami this year (8.6 million passengers to 8.5 million), which means Florida is now home to BOTH of the world's busiest cruise ports.

And more than a third of you guessed Nassau, which makes total sense since it's one of the most popular cruise destinations on the planet.

⏰ Weekly quizzes drop Tuesday at 5 PM ET on the Community tab.

Next week’s Travel Trivia is about a quiet little device that's been hiding in your travel kit for over 25 years (and yes, you already have it).

Most travelers have no idea it exists, but it changed how the world identifies you at every border crossing.

Think you know what it is?

Head to the Community tab on Tuesday at 5 PM ET to take your guess!

JetBlue announced this weekend that it's expanding its Fort Lauderdale schedule with new routes to destinations including Cali, Colombia and Nashville, Tennessee.

Fort Lauderdale was Spirit's biggest hub, so this is the first concrete sign of how the rest of the industry is going to absorb what Spirit left behind.

➡️ Click here to learn more about JetBlue's Fort Lauderdale expansion

The DHS shutdown finally ended last week, but TSA officials are warning that the staffing damage will linger well into the busy travel season.

More than 1,100 officers quit during the 75-day funding lapse, and each new hire takes 4 to 6 months to fully train. Translation: don't get your hopes up too quickly.

➡️ Click here to learn more about TSA's staffing outlook through summer

As of May 1st, American and Delta limit passengers to two portable chargers, each rated at 100 watt-hours or less. Southwest is even stricter, allowing just one charger per passenger.

The chargers have to stay visible and within reach the whole flight, can't go in the overhead bin, and can't be recharged mid-air. The rules are a direct response to a string of in-flight battery fires last year.

➡️ Click here to learn more about the new portable charger rules

This week was a lot.

Watching an airline that carried tens of millions of Americans last year disappear in a single weekend, with 17,000 employees out of work and tens of thousands of travelers scrambling, isn't normal.

It's hard for anyone who works in or loves travel.

It's especially hard for the Spirit teams who showed up for what they thought was just another shift, not knowing it would be their last.

If you've felt a little rattled this week, that's fair.

But here's the thing about travel right now.

You don't need to track every airline collapse, every TSA staffing report, every new in-flight rule.

You just need the handful of things that matter for YOUR next flight, in YOUR airport, on YOUR schedule.

That's what we do here every Friday (or try to anyway).

And if you flew Spirit, worked for Spirit, or are sorting out a rebook this week, I'm thinking about you.

You've got this.

Happy travels, and see you soon,

– Megan