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Some willing to pay for fast airport security checks Friday, Jul 4, 2008 By John Lyon Arkansas News Bureau LITTLE ROCK - Passing through Little Rock National Airport, Cornelis Ooms of Houston said he was looking forward to life in the fast lane. Ooms is enrolling in Clear, a program that provides access to fast, members-only lanes at security checkpoints in some airports for a $128 annual fee. The lanes are available at airports in 17 cities, including Little Rock. Ooms said he flies on business about three times a week, often to and from San Francisco, where security lines tend to be lengthy. "If I fly from San Francisco, I have problems actually to get earlier access, so that's actually why," he said, explaining his decision to sign up for Clear's services. "I do not have problems up to now in other airports." About 1,600 people have enrolled in Clear at the Little Rock airport since the program arrived in Arkansas' capital city last August, and another 400 have begun the enrollment process. About 190,000 have enrolled nationwide, and 90 percent have stuck with the program, the company says. The Little Rock airport welcomed Clear with open arms. Airport spokeswoman T.J. Williams said Wednesday that as far as she knew the airport had received no complaints about the program. "It's been a positive response from the people who use it," she said. Clear is a private company that operates with the approval of the Transportation Security Administration. Founder and CEO Steven Brill, also the creator of Court TV, has said Clear aims to enhance security in the post-Sept. 11 world without strangling the free flow of people and commerce. To enroll in Clear, a person must provide two forms of government-issued identification and allow his or her photo, fingerprints and iris images to be captured. Information is provided to the TSA, which conducts a security screen - and continues to screen the person periodically as long as he or she remains a member. Each member is issued a Clear card which can be fed into a kiosk at any participating airport. The kiosk uses biometric scanning technology to confirm the person's identity. Clear members still have to go through the same security checks at the airport as everyone else - a clean record doesn't guarantee a person isn't a terrorist - but attendants are on hand to help speed up the process. Having their own lane also helps members get through security quickly, usually in under 5 minutes, the company claims. In announcing the arrival of Clear in Little Rock last August, company officials said the kiosks would scan members' shoes, eliminating the need for them to remove their shoes for security personnel. That technology has yet to be implemented, however. "It's in the TSA lab being tested, and we're hopeful of having it out there," Brill said in a phone interview Wednesday. "Just as soon as they give us the word, we will deploy it." The company has its critics. Some question whether it is fair for people who can afford to pay an extra fee to get special treatment at airport security checkpoints, which are financed by a security fee paid by all fliers, not just Clear members. In a recent article on so-called "registered traveler" programs in The New York Times Magazine, Christopher Caldwell wrote, "Whether richer fliers should be allowed to cut in line at checkpoints is one of a family of problems that crop up when public spaces and private interests intersect. What looks to one person like flexibility looks to another like bribing your way through the system." Brill said that by agreeing to be screened in advance, Clear members aid the TSA in its security mission. Giving Clear members their own lane also means shorter lanes for non-members, he said. "It's especially fair if, as a result of us being able to process you faster, the other people who aren't in the program go through faster," he said. Several fliers who were interviewed Wednesday at the Little Rock airport said they liked the idea of the Clear program but thought it was not offered at enough airports to justify the membership fee. "This is the only airport that I go to that I even see it," said Donna Young of St. Louis. "The biggest complaint (from members) is that other airports don't have it," Clear spokeswoman Cindy Rosenthal said. "They're constantly like, 'What's going on with DFW (Dallas-Fort Worth)? What's going on with Seattle?'" Brill said Clear lanes are on the verge of opening in Atlanta and Los Angeles, and other cities - none of them in Arkansas - will be added to the list soon. The program is expanding rapidly after encountering some initial difficulties when it began enrolling members in June 2005, Brill said. "It took us a lot longer than we'd hoped to get into our first six airports," he said. "Conversely, it's taken us a lot less time to get into the next 12. What started out as slow-going inertia has now turned into real momentum." |
