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Old Aug 19, 2005 | 11:34 pm
  #36  
seauaflyer
 
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: Seattle
Programs: UA Gold, UA 1MM
Posts: 269
Originally Posted by Fredd
Last week Mrs. Fredd and I flew out of SEA for the first time in six weeks. We used two different elite lines and noticed quite a change. An AS checker grudgingly let us in with our UA 1K BPs at the closest access point to the Pacific Marketplace, which we hadn't yet seen. Once we got past her we realized we had to barge in front of others to get to an open TSA lane, not a pleasant feeling. The wait itself was only about 15 minutes around 6:00 p.m.

Later we ventured outside security to help family members check in for our UA flight and then headed back to our usual security line behind the UA counters. As others have noted, the elite line is now closest to you. It was only after we were in it for awhile that we discovered that there were only two TSA checkpoints open, and we waited for at least 30 minutes. We again felt we were barging in front of others as we got to the front. As a 1K I like barging in but I like being able to do it discreetly.

We seldom fly out of SEA in the evening. Are these mob scenes typical of early evenings, summers, or both, did we just have the bad luck of a particularly busy night, or have the logistics worsened in the security lines?
The TSA shifted staff from the afternoon and evening shifts to the morning to lesson the wait times (at the request of the airlines and the Port of Seattle). The result has been generally modest morning wait times but longer afternoon/evening wait times.
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