Westcoaster

This short article is 2 weeks old but I could't find it already having been posted:

http://www.seattletimes.com/life/tra...airline-urges/

The last couple of times I've flown out of SEA both the regular and precheck lines were really long. I found it interesting in the above article that the WSJ reported fears of a "summer travel meltdown." More fun to come! I'll have to see if I can find that WSJ article.

Edited to add: The WSJ article is here but requires a subscription -- http://www.wsj.com/articles/why-airp...ger-1456943591

PV_Premier

The normal lines were beastly the last time I was at SEA, but the PRE line had no one in it at all. I waltzed through in 5 minutes, tops.

I am glad most of my travel is to and from secondary airports that are still large enough to have PRE. But yes, with the megathread on EWR, the issues in MSP, and now SEA...it could be an ugly summer.

And honestly this is mostly due to TSA's "enhanced" security measures, which means they stare at your ID and the Xray screen for an extra 30 seconds per passenger with no further "enhancements" to the security process.

EZEDoesIt

Maybe that's the way to protest not enough break time? Quick 30s naps for every passenger?

PDXPremier

PDX should be a zoo the next few days since most K-12 public schools in Oregon will be on Spring Break. Last year during Spring Break, I got a $300 VDB voucher for giving up my seat on an oversold PDX-SEA flight which rarely happens anymore.

Westcoaster

I'll be at SEA tomorrow around 5:00 a.m. so I'll see whether the lines are better at that hour. The last time I was at the dedicated precheck line at checkpoint 4 the line was so long that I went down to checkpoint 3. The line was bad there too so just had to wait and wait. Eventually they added another checker so the line started to move more quickly. Even so I fared better than those in the regular lines -- lots of unhappy faces there. If things are that bad now I can't imagine what summer will look like. That's one reason I fly as little in the summer as possible.

woodway

I cleared SEA security around 5:00 am on 3/2, 3/6 and 3/14 and each time went through the central checkpoint pre line. My longest wait was maybe 5 minutes. Regular lines looked to be pretty backed up on 3/6 and 3/14.

felixmendelssohn

Can confirm--was in SEA two weeks ago and on a Tuesday afternoon the pre-check line was the longest I've ever seen it. I've been making biweekly trips for quite a while, too.

LwoodY2K

I did some Saturday SEA-IAD trips arriving at SEA around 730am and the pre line near the AS counter was 50+ people. Still moves fairly quick, but the first time I went to the big central checkpoint instead (which had 'only' 20-30 people).

nwflyboy

I flew out of SEA around noon on Sunday. Precheck lines were fine. But the regular lines were the longest I've ever seen at SEA. Took about an hour to get through (and we went to the shortest of the three checkpoints - other lines looked significantly longer).

This looked to me to be an intentional work slow-down. Yeah, I know what TSA stands for, but there were even more than usual of them just standing around - several of them "working the lines" not doing anything that appeared security-related, chit-chatting with people, discussing the weather, telling stories to kids, etc. The guys doing ID check seemed to pause for 20 seconds between every thing they did (look at your boarding pass, pause 20 seconds....look at your ID, pause 20 seconds...look at you, pause 20 seconds...check that all three are the same, pause 20 seconds....stand there staring off into space, pause 20 seconds...hand your id and boarding pass back to you, pause 20 seconds...tell you to move on, pause 20 seconds....look up at the next person in line, pause 20 seconds....motion them to step forward, pause 20 seconds). Same routine at the nude-o-scope and scanner stations: like everything was go-stop-wait-wait-go-stop-wait-wait.

People were understandably getting agitated, rightly concerned about missing flights. We had budgeted an extra 90 minutes for lounge time and maybe a massage - good thing we did, because almost all of that buffer was consumed by the TSA act.

Gonna be a long summer like this...

michellt

Tuesday 3/15 at 4p ... Checkpoint 4 Pre-check line had just closed, only the Checkpoint 3 Pre-check line was open (I know because I walked to 2 and 5). Checkpoint 3 line was wound down around to the start of the main line, and TSA agents were letting people know that it was at least 30 minutes long. They did not seem bothered :-(.

I settled on the Premium line at Checkpoint 2 as it seemed the shortest and was through in 10 minutes. But I spent 15 minutes gathering that data so probably no real win.

dayone

Thanks for taking one for the team.

grafpaper

Got to SEA at ~5:10am this morning and it was a zoo.

PRE line took ~5 minutes but the Boardroom check-in lady told me that the normal lines were somewhere in the neighborhood of 75 minutes and that people were being advised to show up 3 hours prior to departure time.

Would have for sure missed my flight today (6:10am departure) if not for PRE.

surehit49

I was flying out of SEA last Sunday at about 2 pm and the main lines were awful at all of the checkpoints, I have Pre, but was traveling with a friend who does not so I slummed it in the main line with him. It was my first time using non-Pre in quite awhile and it was terrible. Roughly a 60-minute wait to get through, on the plus (haha) side both of our flights were delayed so we ended up having plenty of time at the Centurion Studio.

dayone

Welcome to FlyerTalk.

qukslvr619

The last time I flew out of SEA, it was a Friday morning in January. Quite possibly it was the worst that I have ever seen for long lines and just an overall mess. I was flying AA but I found that by walking all the way down to the A checkpoint that I was able to casually stroll down the First Class line, make it through in 5 mins, and then take the train over to D. Had I used any of the other checkpoints I surely would have missed my flight.

What I hate about the setup is that there are no designated (other than the A checkpoint) areas for Precheck or First Class. You are forced to enter the long queue full of the masses which kind of defeats part of the benefit of having Precheck.