No idea if this will pass or not but paying a private company to cut lines in airports seemed like a flimsy value prop
If I have priority check-in through airline status, or am not checking baggage, then security waiting time is the main variable in the time to get from the terminal entrance to the gate (we'll ignore disaster airports like LAX where time from the freeway to the terminal is a major variable). If Clear lets me essentially not wait in line for security, that reduces an expectation of a, say, 0-45 minute time through security to a 0-5 minute time through security. Even if it might often not save me any time getting through security, the reduction in uncertainty means I can safely plan to arrive at the airport much later, while having the same low chance of missing the flight.
Some airline status provides priority security, but it is less common, usually at higher levels, and less consistent outside major hubs for each airline. Flying business or first would work, but would be vastly more than the cost of Clear for frequent travellers, while providing few other benefits for short flights.
In Europe, some airports just directly offer a paid priority security option, which sometimes is actually quite inexpensive. But it seems this may not be allowed by the TSA, and the alternative is the fiction of Clear supposedly offering some identity verification benefit.
The question is why a non governmental entity is inserted into the middle of transportation security, with a profit incentive.
There already existed an entire apparatus for airport transportation security. There already existed an entire apparatus for fingerprint and other biometric verification to expedite the security screening process (precheck and global entry).
So then why did the government give Clear the right to bypass the official process? Why not just have a precheck plus or whatever system? Why not just have everyone do their biometrics when they do them every 5 years for precheck as it is?
Reminds me of ID.me, the for-profit company that authenticates users for certain IRS services including IRS Direct File [1]. For some reason, the government agency asks us to present our government-issued ID to a private company to verify our identity when Login.gov [2] exists to provide “the public’s one account for government”.
[1]: https://directfile.irs.gov/
[2]: https://login.gov/
I agree that it makes little sense, and doesn't seem like it should be allowed, but for some reason, the airports in the US have decided that paid priority security lines should be outsourced to a for-profit private intermediary offering a nonsense security service.
Clear does often have a precheck/non-precheck distinction, but when I had precheck (and not clear), I had enough trouble with miscommunications between different TSA agents about a line being one or the other that resulted in delays and secondary bag screening, at least at LAX, that it did not seem particularly useful. I did not appreciate being told by one person not to remove anything from my bag, then shouted at by another person for not having removed anything from my bag.
Most US airports I’ve been to have 4 types of queues:
* No TSA precheck, no Clear
* TSA precheck, no Clear
* No TSA precheck, Clear
* TSA precheck, Clear
They all work exactly as you expect (you get the benefits of either precheck or clear or both at once, depending on the queue).