This isn’t a gripe about inexperienced travelers trying PreCheck for the first time post. However, I feel like I need to say something. I purposely avoid traveling on Monday mornings as a matter of practice, but sometimes, it can’t be helped. This was one of those mornings. I’ve seen lines for PreCheck before, and I’ve posted about them here. I’ve even seen lines on Monday morning in Atlanta before….and I’ve posted about them here. It’s just that I’ve never seen a line for PreCheck in Atlanta like the line I witnessed for the south checkpoint this morning. After dropping two bags off with Delta (yes, it’s a special kind of business trip), I headed for security where I found not just a line, but a really big line. An enormously huge line – like….I couldn’t see the end of it. I think it went all the way back to near the food court area.
I should have taken a picture, but you know, I always fear being accosted by an overzealous airport employee so hopefully, you will take my word for it. I usually just fall in, and things move quickly enough. It’s worth an extra wait just to keep my shoes on and my various electronic attachments in place. But something compelled me to rebel just a little bit this morning. 🙂 I walked past the labyrinth of a line, past the main checkpoint which was its own kind of special this morning, and over to the north side checkpoint. I’m not going to pretend it was great, because it was packed too, but not ridiculously so. There was a line, but it did not snake past my ability to see the end. In fact, it did not extend outside the main queue. The whole thing took about 10 minutes, maybe 15, and I was in.
Seriously, I’m all for expanding PreCheck, but the checkpoints are going to have to be reorganized to recognize the expanded availability of it to more travelers. Even if the wait time this morning wasn’t ultimately out of hand for me, the truth is that most people will just fall in and not move to the other side of the terminal unless someone tells them to. I know it’s selfish, but I miss the old days of PreCheck.
-MJ, May 12, 2014
Well stated. I’m not sure what the end game is for TSA here. I love the idea of the “experienced traveler” pre-check line vs the invited traveler pre-check. Good luck in your travels.
Perhaps this is a good thing. While it may suck to pay to have a benefit that is being eroded, it seems we are slowly headed back to airport security as it was before 9/11/01. Global Entry is a far superior program, and is worth the cost; pre check is a nice add-on.
I think one of the problems is that they are now letting a lot of non-precheck people into the precheck lines. When they do this, the people don’t understand the precheck policies and it actuallly takes longer to get through.
I’d rather stand in a 50 person “real” precheck line than a 100 person non-precheck line just because the travelers are experienced and will get through faster.
DenIgration?
What you said.
Hopefully they’re reading. At least one TSA higher-up pays attention to Twitter as well, and used to respond when I praised them (a while ago now though).
Sadly, this is par for the course in the mornings at DFW and ORD as well – lines snaking around the terminal, and 45-60m waits. Some airports will do “expedited screening” in non-PRE lanes, which I can live with – they give you a card or a sticker after you get LLL’d, and can leave shoes/belts/laptops/liquids, but may have to go through a nude-o-scope. Not enough of them have figured out this work around though.
They say they will stop doing this when more people sign up for precheck. But it removes the motivation for the masses to get precheck when they have a good shot of getting it anyway.
I did the same this morning at IAD. After first bp scan, one can opt for the non-TSA pre line. Takes only 3-4 minutes, while the pre line takes 10-15 minutes. Crazy…