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Comment by blix | Hacker News Reader

I don't think Pre-Check would be as popular if you had to wait in the same line as everybody else, even if you got to keep your shoes on.

Literal line cutting is just a special case of separate lines with different processing priority.

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Pre-TSA, when airports ran their own security checkpoints, it was not unusual to have a separate line for first class and high-level frequent flyer members. So that aspect of it has always been around. We just made it a governmentally-enforced one.

Plus, a lot of Precheck people have it via Global Entry, which really is paying to skip the line. Since I got GE, I have never once spent as much time at immigration coming back to the US as it took me to walk from the gate to the immigration hall. Longest line ever was maybe five minutes, because an entire jumbo jet's flight crew was in front of me. I've bypassed hours-long lines.

Some airports still have separate lines (including to customs and immigration) for some frequent flyer status holders. Some are plainly visible, like in IST, some are better hidden with a separate entry into the airport itself.

At the highest end of flyer status, some airlines will escort you out of the jetway via the access door just as you step off the plane (before you even enter the terminal) and drive you directly to your next flight, where you climb the stairs, enter via the jetway access door, and walk onto the plane. That’s for very important customers with tight connections.

It has nothing to do with important or connections, just the passenger's wallet size. It is a service like any other, and last I inquired it was $400 per person for each end of the flight.

I think an important distinction here is that Clear doesn't want a separate line. They want to cut in the PreCheck line to make more money. The worse they can make PreCheck, the more money they make.

most of the time it takes significantly more time to faff around taking off shoes/belts, taking laptops/liquids out of bags than it does to get through the ID check section.

Though as more advanced scanners come in this might lose value, at many airports now everything stays in your bag anyway, shoes stay on and you go through the whole body scan (which takes 5 seconds). It was amazing how quick it was going through las vegas

I'll admit to getting PreCheck because the wait tends to be shorter. But allowing people to keep their shoes on, their laptop in their bag, etc, makes the wait shorter for everyone. And if I had my way, no one would need to go through the TSA security theater.

I definitely like the shorter line, but the reduced friction from not having to unpack your bags with laptops, take off your shoes, and walk-through scanner instead of pose-for-the-scan-then-wait scanner is worth it alone, even if you do have to wait in the same line.

It's surprising to me to see this opinion (echoed in scarby2's sibling comment), because outside of the laptop ritual, the other things register as approximately zero friction to me.

In some sense air travel is an exercise in friction and waiting. Standing in line definitely rubs me the wrong way, but others might weight their inconveniences very differently. Perhaps keeping your shoes on should be a separate upcharge from a shorter wait :P

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