Why PreCheck has failed to keep its promise
 

Would you buy a service from a firm that promises to make your life on the road easier, but won't guarantee that it will let you use the service after you purchase it?

Would you buy that service if the firm only operates at one in four places where you need it -- and then won't guarantee it's available even at the places where it does operate?

Would you buy the service if the firm also gives it away randomly to people who don't know how to use it and then slow the service so dramatically that you might be better off not using it?

Joe B starts his essay with these 3 questions, which succinctly describe TSA's mess called "PreCheck."

The rest of the essay is here: http://www.bizjournals.com/bizjourna....html?page=all

Joe fails to point out another negative: it's extortion.

Pre-check should be the normal travel experience for all travelers with no ID, no registration, unless there is clear, probable cause to screen someone differently. Furthermore, all passengers should have the same liquids allotment as crewmembers and airport "security" employees: unlimited.

Pissant should be terminated and jailed for life.

Pre-check has been great for me and the bulk of the HVC business community who have it via GE. It's generally-speaking available, expanding, and being made more broadly available.

The bulk of the HVC business customers get PreCheck without being members of GE.

Well, that one I can understand. That's the "give away a free sample so that you'll spend money to buy more" marketing gimmick. Which works in many situations.

The other points, of course, remain valid.

PreCheck works fine for me. The lines are short (well, maybe not in Miami) and the clerks manning those lines appear to be more competent than the average TSA employee.

The only issue I have is with WN. (There is a long thread in the WN forum.) Apparently, there is a disconnect between Concur and the reservation system WN uses. KTN is not populated properly in the record and Precheck isn't secured. I have to call WN to have KTN added for each reservation.

Otherwise, i have enjoyed it. Amex Plat covered the $85 fee!

I agree, but there should be a limit to the "free samples," otherwise there is no incentive to purchase.

It appears that MCO TSA is at least trying to separate the freeloaders from the purchasers. There are now two parallel lanes. TSA directs the young and the old into one and those who appear to be solo business travelers into the other lane. Works great, but of course it will not last as they are, in essence, profiling.

Ah yes, the scourge of freeloading Americans expecting to be treated properly by their government. How dare they not buy back their dignity with money and loss of privacy. I can see how that would be cumbersome and frustrating to some. Still, dealing with that seems like a such a small price when compared to the cost of what many have paid in their defense of equal treatment by the government.

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"Pre-Check" has not "failed to keep its promise". It is the only thing the TSA has done that hasn't been a total disgrace. I was dubious from the beginning up until 8 or 9 months ago, because I saw it as just a way to create a class of Übermenschen and give them different experience than everybody else, thereby silencing a group most likely to speak up against the TSA's abuses. That might have been the motivation when it was introduced, but now they're opening it up to more and more people and that's great.

There never was any promise to create a special group and give them a 30-second screening experience by vastly overallocating government resources to them. The expressed rationale was to create a risk-based screening process. All passengers are low-risk, so naturally any truly risk-based aviation screening process is going to provide the "low-risk" experience to almost all passengers, with maybe a few random secondary checks.

There never was and cannot be any sort of promise to guarantee expedited screening to somebody. That creates a gaping hole in security. I got a random secondary going into Canada on NEXUS one time. If not for things like that, there would be a constant stream of cash in the northbound NEXUS lane and weed in the southbound NEXUS lane. The fact that TSA does nothing to provide aviation security is a separate issue from "Pre-check."

The complaint that it isn't at all airports isn't a violation of any promise, that's like complaining that there's not an In-N-Out near you. People who want to pay to sign up can look at the list first and don't sign up until their airport shows up on the list. And more and more airports are getting added.

The complaint that they are adding more and more people isn't a violation of any promise - by the time they started up the TSA-only program, that was well-known. People who are in NEXUS and GE don't stop getting NEXUS and GE; they just have to share their "special" lane that they got as an added extra benefit.

The complaint that newbs don't know what they're doing is no longer valid. The clerks have quit screaming about it, and are using their indoor voices to explain to people what to do, and everybody knows the drill by the time they get to the X-ray.

The TSA is a disgraceful agency, but adding more people to "Pre-check" isn't what makes it disgraceful. If they have "Pre-check" for everybody, stop the war on water, fire all the clerks who are not needed, and institute physical fitness standards for clerks, the screening process will be basically all right.

The article has a strong flavor of "Den Deutschen, Deutschland!"

Very well said....

Pre check has not worked for me thus far. I just got the GE and have used it twice and it works great. But not Pre check. My travel agent keys it in for me, the gate agent keys it in for me, but it has not worked the 2 times I have tried it so far so I still have to do the old shoes and belt off dance. :(

The very fact that precheck exists is a failure. If TSA was able to do its job, there would be no need for precheck. It would be the default for everyone.

Indeed. Tony Soprano (RIP) would be proud.

"Gimme a C every 5 years and some information about you and you most likely won't have any problems at the checkpoint. Pay my associate Christopher over there by the Men's Room. You run into problems, talk to my associate Paulie. I can't guarantee anything but he's a good guy."