Long lines? Not with this bypass

By Tom Belden
Inquirer Staff Writer

When business traveler Henry Morgan approaches a security checkpoint at Orlando International Airport, he knows something most travelers don't: how long it will take to get through it.

That's because Morgan is a card-carrying "Registered Traveler," enrolled in a federal program that creates special security lanes for those willing to be vetted in advance.

"No matter how many tourists are in line, I'm through in five minutes," said Morgan, who works for an Ocoee, Fla., manufacturing company. He flies frequently, including three times a year to Philadelphia, and was one of the first to sign up for the fledgling program. "It's predictable, and it's reliable," he said. "I don't have to be at the airport two hours before a 6:45 a.m. flight."

More than five years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, one of the first ideas to speed up the tedious process of airport security screening is finally rolling out nationwide.

But don't count on the Transportation Security Administration's Registered Traveler program to help trim waiting times at Philadelphia International Airport soon. Here, officials say they haven't determined how to fit additional security lanes into the airport's six-terminal layout. They also want to see how the program works at other airports first.

And the Philadelphia airport managers aren't the only ones holding their applause. Some business travel groups question the value of the effort and say the government has not addressed some of its flaws.

Registered Traveler, which is being managed by private-sector contractors to the TSA, gives frequent travelers a special biometric identity card - if they pay $99.95 a year, pass a background check, and submit to being fingerprinted and having their irises scanned. The TSA gets $28 of the $99.95 fee to conduct the background checks, with the rest going to contractors to run the airport programs.

Cardholders skip the normal security lines, feed the card into a reader at a kiosk, and go directly to the metal detectors. Their bags still must be X-rayed but they may not have to take off their shoes, depending on the technology available at each checkpoint.

The program has a legion of fans, such as Morgan, who have taken part over the last 15 months in a test at the Orlando airport, said Verified Identity Pass Inc., which calls its Registered Traveler program Clear. The New York company was the first vendor the TSA approved to offer the service, and it has issued identity cards to more than 35,000 travelers, most of them based in Orlando.

In mid-January, Clear was expanded to airports in Cincinnati, Indianapolis and San Jose, Calif., and to British Airways' Terminal 7 at New York's Kennedy International Airport. Last week, it announced that Virgin Atlantic Airways and other international carriers would use the program at Newark Liberty International Airport starting in mid-March.

Steven Brill, the former magazine publisher who founded Verified Identity, said the most challenging part of the effort had been to develop the biometric technology to meet TSA standards and to sign up participants.

"From our standpoint, the hard part is done," Brill said. "Now it's just a matter of convincing airports to do it."

A handful of other companies that are vendors of card readers, including Unisys Corp. of Blue Bell, have been authorized by the TSA to operate Registered Traveler programs at other airports. Each vendor's card must work in the other companies' airport kiosks, allowing the program to spread nationwide.

Unisys has run pilot programs at the Minneapolis/St. Paul, Los Angeles and Houston Intercontinental airports, and is developing Registered Traveler technology based on the company's 20-plus years of computer-systems work for airports, said Larry Zmuda, a partner in Unisys' homeland-security practice. The company will start operating its first full-fledged system at the Reno, Nev., airport this month, he said.

Airports contract directly with Unisys, Verified Identity, or another approved service provider to set up and run programs in each facility - a process that Philadelphia airport officials don't expect to start for at least a year or two.

Mark Gale, the airport's deputy director of operations, noted that Philadelphia has eight security checkpoints in six terminals and is in various stages of construction to add lanes for all passengers in three of the six terminals.

The airport wants to make sure that adding Registered Traveler lanes won't slow the inspection process for other travelers, Gale said.

"We're not ready to jump in with both feet yet," he said.

City Aviation Director Charles J. Isdell said the airport also was moving slowly because its two largest carriers, US Airways and Southwest, with three-quarters of the passengers between them, weren't demanding Registered Traveler lanes immediately.

Many business travelers who use large airports take advantage already of special security lanes, run by individual airlines, that are open only to that carrier's passengers with elite-level frequent-flier status. Those lanes help those who qualify, but even some travelers who use them aren't sure they want to pay $100 a year for an ID card that can be used in only a handful of airports.

"When you see the security line going across the terminal, over the bridge, you can use the elite line... because it keeps you from standing in line for an hour," said Melissa Finnegan, who works for a medical-equipment-maker in Gloucester County. She flies often from Philadelphia, and is an elite-level member of several airline programs.

Finnegan said she would like to see how much time is saved with a Registered Traveler card before signing up. "At this point, I would not enroll, only because I would want to see how it works out and when it gives the traveler some benefit," she said.

Others are concerned about privacy issues because travelers who want to register are fingerprinted and subject to background checks.

The Association of Corporate Travel Executives, which represents companies worldwide with almost a million business travelers, is worried that the TSA hasn't established an appeals process for someone turned down for a Registered Traveler card after going through a background check. It can take 30 days to know whether an applicant has passed, and, in case of failure, the TSA won't say why, the organization said.

Association executive director Susan Gurley said surveys of its travel-manager members conducted last year indicate that, for about 16 percent of companies, failure to pass the background check could raise questions about an employee that could affect his or her status with the company. And 7 percent of companies could hold it against an employee for refusing to apply for a card, the surveys showed.

"A redress program should be a part of it," Gurley said. "That's part and parcel of the American legal system. People should know what their options are."