Comment by SJC_Hacker

> The incentives for the airport are to be as cheap as possible, which they do by not having enough staff manning bagging/security et el for the peaks

Anyone who doesn't work for the airlines at large commercial airports in the US, is very likely to be a government employee. TSA being a very large portion of that. They do not have any direct incentives to be cheap.

In large urban areas you will generally have more than one airport, so its not the monopoly you're making it out to be. Any delays caused by the airline (long lines at bag check) would also be subject to competition with the airport itself from competing airlines.