Flying out of DEN last Friday, I saw the TSA elite line queue was at a standstill. There were dozens of crew members just marching up and taking the plastic bins and unloading their stuff. Not even an "Excuse me". Then there were airport employees marching up by the dozens. They only had cellphones and keys to unload so they were quick. Then a guy showed up with a Fed-EX ID and jumped the queue too

I was just watching the charade of the entire TSA process that it did not bother me. What did bother me was senior manager looking types yelling at the airport employees - "We have better things to do like taking a flight, compared to flipping burgers!". It appalled me that people could make such statements. I know most of them have huge egos, but will they not be stopping by the same burger place to grab something to eat?

Is jumping the queue a fair thing? Appalling behavior aside...

Sounds like the kind of scenes I witness -- and have come to expect -- at quite a number of airports in economically less developed parts of the world.

Some places -- like say ORD -- have a dedicated line for many such persons. That doesn't irk as many people in the way line-jumping noted in the OP does.

People behind me in the line ended up far ahead of me when an employee opened a rope and moved them ahead in a bunch of at least 20. Doesn't seem fair at all.

I do appreciate the LAPTOPS? sign

I enjoyed watching the TSA guys in Miami forcing the crew into their own line.

I appreciate that we can't fly without them, and that the travel they do is actually tougher than ours, but, still, I get to the airport with time to make security, why can't they?

This series of posts neglects the real issue - why are flight crews subjected to screening? I know - someone could 'slip a pound of C-4 into a flight crew member's carry-on', but this is about as likely as Ted Kennedy winning an Olympic medal for swimming.

There are far too many holes elsewhere in the system that are going unaddressed.

Why not screen flight crews? Not screening them isn't going to help plug any other security holes, and it will just make it more tempting for them to try use a crewmember to slip something in. And flight crews must make up, what, 2-5% of the total number of people going into an airport?

I hate it when people are allowed to skip the line. That completely dwarts my attempts to pick the shortest/fastest line or undermines the point of having an elite line.

In Narita the employees get their own line OUT OF SIGHT of the general lines. The elite lines in Japan are also OUT OF SIGHT of the general lines to avoid any emabarassment.

And even if you are stuck in a really long non-priority line, thanks to the effective screening procedure it will hardly ever take you longer than 10 minutes to pass through the screening. And all that without people yelling at you.

HTB.

What are you basing your assessment that it's unlikely that crews could be used unwittingly to smuggle stuff into the sterile area?

A few quick points:

First, crews don't keep their luggage in their possession at all times, for one. Others will dispute this, but you'll see crew luggage in a pile in hotel lobbies from time to time. We know for a fact that terrorists and other criminals seek to use unwitting accomplices to circumvent security.

Second, not searching crews gives them an opportunity to run a little business on the side, smuggling stuff through the checkpoint. All it takes is one desperate $20,000 / year flight attendant.

Third, how do you know who is an actual crew member and who is a guy who bought a uniform on the Internet and printed out a fake ID?

cutting lines keep costs down since the duty cycle of the flight crew begins when they enter the airport. If they would spend lets say an hour in line then that is another hour on the FAA clock which would force airlines to have dual crews for many routes. After learning how duty cycles works for flight crews i have much deeper understanding on why it's a good thing for me that they get to cut the line. Now, this can be done out of sight or whatever -but it's still a good thing in the grand scheme of things

First of all, I hate flying through airports that don't have a designated crew line. I feel like a heel cutting the line, even if I am doing it to report to work. It's almost embarrassing.

If crew had to report to the airport early enough to wait in line like everybody else, then our employers would have to compensate us for being on duty that early before a flight, as well as adjust our duty times for legality purposes.

To the OP-they at least could have said "excuse me"

First - can you name any instances of terrorists using flight crew luggage?

Second - The same $20,000/year FA is probably already getting away with it, despite screening.

Third - again, how many instances of this have occurred, despite the post 9/11 hysteria involving "stolen pilot uniforms/UPS uniforms/police uniforms," etc.?

The real point is, there are hundreds of people other than flight crew who have access to the equipment without being screened, e.g., gate agents, baggage handlers, food service, fuel service, etc.

I don't know if crew have been used or not, but there have been attempted cases of using passenger luggage. In any event, there were no cases of 9/11 attacks before 9/11, but that doesn't mean that it wouldn't have been a good idea to try to stop the attacks before the occurred. Instead, we knew that people wanted to crash planes into buildings but ignored the threat. Here we know that terrorists want to use other people as mules to smuggle stuff into the sterile area, so I don't see much of a reason to ignore that threat.

Screening, while not perfect, deters plenty of people from bringing prohibited items into the sterile area. At least if the crew is being screened we have a chance of stopping someone. If they're not, then we have no chance.

None that I know of because we screen crew, so there's not much value in getting a fake uniform and ID. If we stopped screening crew, then there would be quite a big incentive to do so.

There are cases of people using fake IDs for criminal purposes every day. Yesterday someone got robbed here in Boston by someone who was dressed up like a cop and had a badge.

Right - that's already a major security concern (and in fact the TSA does screen some of these people some of the time for just that reason). But how does increasing the number of unscreened people improve security?

I believe crew should be entitled to their own line (shared with other airport employees). I don't think it's acceptable for them to jump existing passenger queues which is unfair to existing queuers who have been waiting their turn. If there is no crew line TSA should open an extra lane temporarily to accomodate any large crews. I also feel every mid-sized+ airport should have an elite line.

TSA
Tampering Simpleton Agents

Better to be more specific: the new *Alliance Wing of Narita Airport has an Elite line. However, only ANA elite counts. *G members of any other airline will have to queue in the normal lines. I couldn't believe this when I saw it.

HTB.

I'm not surprised, if you are talking about the security lines.

If this were to be with regards to check-in at NRT, I'd be even more annoyed.