Precheck for free?

[GilliC]

@publius, It's not actually pre-check membership. That will still cost $85. They're just going to start automatically selecting more passengers to go through the Pre-Check line.

Although TSA officials acknowledged that passengers chosen at random for the faster line might become motivated to enroll in the Pre-Check program, they said that was not the objective of the plan announced Monday.

[GilliC]

I wonder what the criteria will be for determining low-risk passengers.

I never minded the additional background info for enrolling in Pre-Check, because most of the effective security is all behind the scenes, rather than TSA security theater at the airport. After all, the bulk of serious security threats in recent years have all been identified through intelligence activities before anyone even got to the airport. Since it's hard to monitor everyone in the world who will be traveling on a given day, I never minded giving my info to the TSA to either be filtered in or filtered out of that data mining process.

Honestly, I wish they could just do away with security theater altogether. I know it makes some people feel safe, but it's so silly when you really think about it. After all, they're still not actually validating all boarding passes at the security checkpoints. For years and years, you could PhotoShop (or even just use MSPaint) to change the name on a self-printed pass. As long as no one was scanning it or checking your ID against the no-fly list, you could get through security with no problem. After security, just switch back to the real boarding pass, booked under someone else's name, and you're good to go. Why did we spend all this money on nekkid scanners without putting in the money to install boarding pass scanners to ensure that the name on the boarding pass was actually the name on the ticket? My local airport is not known for stringent security, but even they scan all the passes that come through. Including the smartphone boarding passes. (Last time I flew through Newark, some guy just had the PDF of his boarding pass on his phone. The TSA agents were all, "You're supposed to have a QR code. Next time make sure you have the version with the QR code." Uhh... WTF?)

[Deleted]

Wouldn't some of the opening up be on account of them more than doubling the number of airports in the program?

Either way, the line should move way quicker than the regular line.

[GilliC]

Sept 11, 2013 8:10:57 GMT -5 pagas said:

Sept 11, 2013 7:04:03 GMT -5 v said:

Wouldn't some of the opening up be on account of them more than doubling the number of airports in the program?

Either way, the line should move way quicker than the regular line.

No.  The opening up is all people who have not signed up for the program.

I just don't want it to become what the Elite/Premier lanes have become, they often have longer waits than the general lanes.

I hate this. I flew a ton to get my status, but with all the people who have basic status from the airline credit cards, there's pretty much no benefit to it. United even gives out lounge passes with their credit cards now, so coming off a trans-Atlantic flight, I've had cases where there weren't any available seats in the lounge! At least for pre-boarding, they created a pre-pre-boarding so the higher status levels could go ahead of the credit-card masses.

[Deleted]

Sept 11, 2013 8:10:57 GMT -5 pagas said:

Sept 11, 2013 7:04:03 GMT -5 v said:

Wouldn't some of the opening up be on account of them more than doubling the number of airports in the program?

Either way, the line should move way quicker than the regular line.

No.  The opening up is all people who have not signed up for the program.

I just don't want it to become what the Elite/Premier lanes have become, they often have longer waits than the general lanes.

I don't think I expressed my point well.  There are currently 40 airports in the program.  Soon there will be 100.  Even if membership swells, can't we assume that the increased membership will be spread out over a lot more airports, which may diminish the effect of the swell?

Also, I'd think that even if lines get long, the fact that the line is filled with people who won't be taking off shoes and belts and coats and taking apart their bags to pull out computers and liquids, and then putting everything back together at the other end of the conveyor will make it a far more efficient line than the regular lines.

Also, for a lot of people, paying $85 isn't worth it if they don't travel much/don't have the funds for it, particularly because if you're talking about a family that travels together (rather than an outlier parent who travels a lot for business), it doesn't make much sense for only one family member to have it, so you might be talking about more along the lines of a $340 investment for the family.  That's a luxury for many people, and one that many can't afford/can't justify based on their amount of travel.

[Deleted]

Sept 11, 2013 10:07:27 GMT -5 pagas said:

Sept 11, 2013 9:09:24 GMT -5 v said:

I don't think I expressed my point well.  There are currently 40 airports in the program.  Soon there will be 100.  Even if membership swells, can't we assume that the increased membership will be spread out over a lot more airports, which may diminish the effect of the swell?

Also, I'd think that even if lines get long, the fact that the line is filled with people who won't be taking off shoes and belts and coats and taking apart their bags to pull out computers and liquids, and then putting everything back together at the other end of the conveyor will make it a far more efficient line than the regular lines.

Also, for a lot of people, paying $85 isn't worth it if they don't travel much/don't have the funds for it, particularly because if you're talking about a family that travels together (rather than an outlier parent who travels a lot for business), it doesn't make much sense for only one family member to have it, so you might be talking about more along the lines of a $340 investment for the family.  That's a luxury for many people, and one that many can't afford/can't justify based on their amount of travel.

This program will allow half a million travelers to use the precheck lane without paying the $85 for membership or $100 for Global Entry.  This is going to add a lot of people to the lines, new airports or not.  

I really like the precheck line, people in it know how to get through security efficiently. 

I'm guessing you're getting that from here?:

"About 450,000 passengers a day will be eligible for the special treatment as existing programs are expanded to include a random selection of people deemed low security risks by the TSA."

I don't read that at all as saying that 450,000 random people a day will get it for free.  I take that as 450,000 a day will be eligible, period, including those who are eligible because they paid/had airline status.  I have no idea how many were currently eligible, or how to adjust that for the fact that so many more airports will be involved so a good amount of the traffic will be in those airports too, so I think it is hard to assess the impact but I see no reason to not be cautiously optimistic that at the very least, precheck lines will still be way better than regular ones.