Fly Clear
Apparently there’s a new service, Clear, that lets you pay $100 per year to get special service at the airports. Once you sign up you get some biometric card and you get access to the “Clear Lane” at particular terminals that support them. Right now there aren’t many, but they’ve got one at JFK and expect terminals 1 and 4 at JFK and also Newark airport to come on soon.
The clear lane itself has you identified by your card and then you get to go through to an expedited TSA manned security checkpoint. Ideally this lets you skip most of the security line and have to contend only with other Clear members, which hopefully isn’t that many. They’re working on a few special things like a magic pedestal that scans your shoes for bad stuff so that you don’t have to take off your shoes when you go through the TSA checkpoint - these features are all pending TSA approval.
I guess I’m ok with this, on the one hand, because you aren’t bypassing any security checks that everyone else has to go through, you just get through faster, to a large extent business and first class travellers could already do that. It’s clearly an easier speedway to get access to than flying business or first. But it underscores how stupid our checkpoint system is. That it takes so long this extra cost becomes worthwhile if you travel a lot.
The TSA checkpoints don’t actually do much for our actual safety. This has been documented again and again and again. I never understood about the ziplock bag and the liquids thing and haven’t done it yet and have carried on tons of liquid. I’d like to hope at some point people come back to their senses and the security lines start moving again at a reasonable clip so service like Clear aren’t necessary.
