By Bill Cameron, WLS-AM 890 News

(CHICAGO) While the TSA works to hire more people to help with the long screening lines that have hampered at O’Hare and Midway Airports, U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) is working on a plan to help shrink lines.

Durbin says he’s arranged for Homeland Security to add 58 screeners and four more teams of bomb-sniffing dogs, but it’s going to take several weeks.

He’s also calling on the airlines to help speed up the lines by suspending baggage fees so that more passengers will check their baggage. He says the airlines can afford it.

“They’re making money and lets be honest about it, taking off on a plane that’s half empty because people are still standing, waiting to go through TSA, isn’t very profitable for an airline,” Durbin said. “It keeps their passengers unhappy and uncertain about future travel plans. So if the airlines will join us and forego a little bit of their profitability for a few months here, we can start to get this system working here.”

​So help is on the way, but it’s gonna take a while.