The Globe reports the color-coded lane system previously tried in Colorado started at Terminal A on Monday (today).

I'm sure the system will run smoothly with people choosing their lane based on familiarity with the system, not by the shortest lane which may still be far too long at the height of the morning rush.

While it's fine getting through security at nearly all other times of the day, the queue for the 7am bank of flights is a huge pain.

Orlando Sentinel article on the topic. Flyers self select from three types of lanes, Family, Casual traveler, Expert traveler.

From the blog on expansion of these types of lanes:

That's assuming people won't just go to the shortest line.

Here's how it will work:

The TSO who checks ID's will ask each passenger a series of questions, each more devious than the last. These employees will be trained in SPOT, so that any potentially suspicious characters can be caught early.

Assuming that the passenger/potential terrorist (Hey, they're the same thing now.) makes it through the first screening, the TSO will direct said person to the appropriate lane. The red lane will be for families, people with too many bags or anyone else the TSO chooses to punish. The yellow lane will be for people who look too fast for the red lane, but can't quite make the green lane.

Here's where it gets exciting: passengers directed to the green lane will each have to sign a statement and have it notarized (for a modest fee) that they do not hold the TSA responsible for what follows. Each passenger will have 12 seconds to get his/her shoes off, take out the Freedom Baggie and remove all electronics. After 12 seconds, a TSO will "encourage" the traveler to move more quickly by zapping him with a light shock from a taser. Each additional five seconds will result in increased voltage, until the passenger gets through screening or lapses into unconsciousness.

Hey, it's the new age of airport screening, and we have to learn to live with it.

Mike

Hey! What's with spilling the beans on the TSA secret procedures?

What, black, white and brown?

Ahh, why did they HAVE to bring that up? What does SPOTTING have anything to do with changing the style of the lines?

Was flying back to SFO from SLC last Monday. At security, there were about twenty people in the green line...lots of kids. Ten to fifteen people in the black line...all looked like regular travel types. In the blue line? Two people. My travel profile would put me in the black line, but I'm no idiot. Hopped in the blue line and was through while folks in the black line were still waiting to have their ID checked. ^

Putting all the screaming babies and whining children at MCO into one line will create a "calmer environment"? Someone at TSA been smoking something they found in a Voluntary Abandonment Bin.

What? No ID checker at the podium, or extra slow ID checking?

Fortunately, I wasn't drinking coffee, since it would have been all over my monitor. That is one of the funniest things I've read on FT in a while because, to quote that great philosopher H.J. Simpsons, "It's funny 'cause it's true!"

Mike

It was just that the line past the ID checker backed all the way up to the checker, so people had to wait anyway.

Homeland security alert levels:
Red, Orange, Yellow, Blue, Green.

Passengers are instructed to use the line cooresponding to their alert level color. Terrorists in the Red Line, drug smugglers and cute women who want to be groped by our inspectors in the Orange Line, business travellers in the Yellow line, grannies from Iowa and card carrying republicans in the Blue line, and airport employees (including undocumented workers and convicted felons) in the Green line.

That will make the TSO's job much easier in this critical environment.

It's obligatory mission creep.