Fast-screening lane opens at SeaTac Airport - The Seattle Times

[borntofly]

Fast-screening lane opens at SeaTac Airport - The Seattle Times

"Couldn't stop smiling," is the way Amy Daly-Donovan described breezing through a security checkpoint at Sea-Tac Airport on Tuesday morning as she became one of the first Alaska Airlines passengers to use PreCheck, the Transportation Security Administration's new expedited screening program for low-risk travelers.

"Escorted to a wide-open security lane," she said in an email on her way to New York on business. "Placed my fully packed bags on the belt. Didn't have to unzip a thing. Left my jacket and shoes on and breezed right on through."

Sea-Tac is the 13th U.S. airport to get the specially-designated lane, part of a move by TSA toward what it calls "risk-based" security and away from a one-size-fits-all approach.

Passengers preapproved for the program — either through their airline or via membership in one of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency's "trusted traveler" programs — receive a boarding pass with an embedded bar code. TSA reads the bar code at a designated checkpoint — No. 5 in the north end of the terminal at Sea-Tac — then directs passengers to a special screening lane where most can leave on shoes, jackets and belts, and leave laptops and liquids in their carry-ons.

There will still be random security checks, so no guarantees, TSA spokeswoman Lorie Dankers said at a news conference marking the opening of the PreCheck special lane at Sea-Tac, a lane normally reserved for premium frequent-flier members.

The program is still in a test phase so, for now, the only passengers eligible are those flying from Sea-Tac on Alaska Airlines who are either high-mileage frequent fliers invited by the airline to apply to the TSA for pre-approval or members of the Global Entry, Nexus and Sentri expedited boarding-crossing program run by U.S. Customs.

TSA and U.S. Customs officials celebrated Tuesday's start of PreCheck with


http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&fd=...eck25.html