TSA’s PreCheck program, which allows fliers who apply for an $85 5-year membership that enables them to move more quickly through airport security without having to take off as much or unpack as much at scanning, may be at the root of the increasingly long security lines—as much as 90 minutes—at airports.
Now that warnings are out about long lines this summer, Jason Cochran, editor of Frommers online website, is suggesting that the lines are caused by TSA, under budget pressure from Congress, cutting back on staff it expected not to need because PreCheck requires less staff—and did it without waiting to see if enough people would sign up for PreCheck.
And they haven’t signed up in those numbers. Cochran argues that TSA is in part responsible for that, too. In the beginning, PreCheck was pitched primarily to first- and business-class passengers and to airline elites, which gave it the air of something just for the rich. And, the application process that requires an interview at an airport or government office.
For more details, including why even the Frommers staff is divided on signing up, click HERE. Spoiler: Cochran’s in, Pauline Frommer isn’t, and this Gumbo Guru hates to leave home without it…
I don’t like the whole concept of PreCheck because when they started this added security at airports, they insisted terrorists could be anyone and that’s why we need to check everyone. We enter trains, buses and metros without a PreCheck, and it doesn’t take forever. There is a history of attacks on those means of transportation too. And now attacks could just as easily happen at the ticket counter at the airport as on the plane.