Originally Posted by
Spoddy
I like Pre, and I really believe they should start pushing more people through Pre, except those people should also be cleared.
Recently went through HNL and found a non-Pre sized line in the Pre lane and when we reached the front I asked the TSA officer and she said they're "giving it away" to half the island. She acknowledged that most of these folks have probably never registered or heard of Pre in the first place.
What should have been a short experience with TSA ended up being just as long (though not as shoe/belt/liquids out annoying) as the regular lines.
If the TSA are going to do this crap, they should at least expand the systems to many more lines!!
I agree!! They should drop the $50 fee and encourage every American to apply. Make it the norm. Break the rules once, and you're back in the old line(s), but change the ratio to 1 old line vs many Pre lines so people process through quicker.
The problem is that they have spent the last dozen years barking at people to take their shoes off, belts off, jackets off, everything out of your pockets period, and to take virtually EVERYTHING out of their bag (laptops, liquids, etc) and put it in a million plastic bins. So most infrequent travelers who have not signed up for Pre have become conditioned to this kind of procedure.
Where it breaks down is when they start sending folks randomly through Pre. Most travelers aren't savvy enough or don't care enough to immediately realize they are in the pre-check lane (especially when they are just pointed left or right). As a result they start automatically on the procedure they are used to, and the barkers start yelling at them NOT to take things out of their bag. I was behind a guy at PHL who had already taken his laptop out before he got to the X ray belt and the barker actually
stopped the entire line and made him put his laptop back in his bag before she would let it through the X-ray. Of course it would have been faster to just let it go through out of the bag...