Originally Posted by
Microwave
This is silly. I entered my information on aa.com as soon as I was able, and it shows that I am listed as a trusted traveler. I live in London and Seattle and am interested in using SWUs, so I use JFK as my most frequent port of entry to the US. Having just disembarked a 777 inbound to New York City, I am able to pass through C&I formalities in about 90 seconds with Global Entry... At times I arrive around the same time as flights from the middle east, when the entire passport control area is a madhouse, and I thankfully bypass the entire show and coast landside. Then I take the escalator up, hit the Priority AAccess line, and exactly 0% of the time am given access to the trusted traveler lane. All this does is force me to waste time taking off shoes, getting out liquids and opting out of the rapescanner, when CBP just let me into the country with nary a look.
One big difference between GE and PreCheck is that GE is considered an ongoing program, while PreCheck is still considered a "test" program. PreCheck is definitely changing month to month in a manner that GE isn't, and is showing many "growing pains". IMHO it's therefore not necessarily realistic to compare the relative consistency of GE with PreCheck.
Second, no one ever promised PreCheck would bring consistency to your experience. It has a different purpose than GE. GE is supposed to bring consistency to your experience. PreCheck is supposed to let the
TSA spend less time on trusted travelers, and more time on those it doesn't know. PreCheck is about making the
TSA more efficient, not you more efficient. If you are more efficient sometimes as a
byproduct, good for you, but that is not an official goal. (And that may be why CLEAR isn't completely shut down, despite the existence of PreCheck.)
Finally, those of you who fly (domestically) exclusively through PreCheck airports but not getting LLL'd much may feel picked upon in some way, but what about the "masses" of AA elites who may have to enter and exit at small airports that will never get PreCheck as long as it's only a "test"? It doesn't matter how much they
would get LLL if they entered security at JFK or LAX, but if they're always flying between one Eagle city and one
barely-mainline city through a hub where they stay airside, then they don't
ever get to see LLL and are not likely to anytime soon.
(There are no Eagle-only stations on the announced upcoming PreCheck AA airports list, are there?)