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I disagree. It's actually more intrusive in Europe and East Asia. Europe you actually are questioned by security on intercontinental trips, particularly to the US (although it doesn't take too long).
That's because the US government has instructed its partners to do so for travelers to the US. To a lesser degree, so has the Canadian government.
Fly from any European hub to a US city and you'll get 10 minutes of grilling.
Fly from any European hub to a Canadian city and you'll get 2-5 minutes of grilling.
Fly from any European hub to a third world city and not only are there no questions asked, but they often don't even bother checking photo ID at boarding
If you don't have atleast tsa precheck look into getting global entry. Going through security is much nicer and way faster. no taking off shoes,belts and don't have to take stuff out of your bags. Ofcourse you can be screened like anyone else but so far you practically have only a few minutes wait.
I just came back from Orlando airport. It took my mom and dad an hour to get through the normal line. I got through the tsa precheck line in 10 minutes.
I just got back from travel to Oklahoma City. Before that I went to Orlando.
Now, going through SeaTac is pretty standard fare - it's a lane off to the side of the standard lanes, went through fairly quick.
Orlando, the guy asks (after looking at my boarding pass, mind)..."what airline are you flying on?" Now let's compute this.
- The boarding pass clearly has the airline on it.
- It's a mobile boarding pass so you can clearly tell the airline when it's scanned.
Thus, what's the purpose of asking the airline? Made no sense.
Oklahoma City/Will Rogers Airport actually has a separate room for TSA PreCheck. Meaning you're funneled completely away from the standard lanes entirely. As though they don't want "those people" seeing PreCheckers. I thought for a moment I was going to be frisked - but get this.
There were 8 people sent that way including me. Of the 8 of us, 5 buzzed the metal detector. Of the 5, four of them were due to belts. It's like, come on...it's a METAL DETECTOR, why are you leaving your belt on when you know it's going to set the thing off??? Even worse, when you see someone ahead of you getting flagged for that reason, why are you not just taking the path of least resistance and taking it off?
Then, at least 3 people are like "do I take my laptop out of my bag?" despite three signs clearly telling you not to.
I don't know if some of these were random selects - most of the violators were older - but common sense hasn't changed nor has the need to read signage. Oklahoma is the longest PreCheck experience I've ever dealt with simply because of that nonsense (15 minutes).
If you don't have atleast tsa precheck look into getting global entry. Going through security is much nicer and way faster. no taking off shoes,belts and don't have to take stuff out of your bags. Ofcourse you can be screened like anyone else but so far you practically have only a few minutes wait.
I just came back from Orlando airport. It took my mom and dad an hour to get through the normal line. I got through the tsa precheck line in 10 minutes.
I have Global Entry so that also gives me Pre-Check. Flew into LAX from Hong Kong last Wednesday. Took me just one hour from the plane touching down, getting bussed to immigration, waiting for bags, walking from the international terminal to terminal 1 (Southwest) with my bags (my next leg was on a separate ticket), standing in line to check in and getting through security to my gate.
I have Global Entry so that also gives me Pre-Check. Flew into LAX from Hong Kong last Wednesday. Took me just one hour from the plane touching down, getting bussed to immigration, waiting for bags, walking from the international terminal to terminal 1 (Southwest) with my bags (my next leg was on a separate ticket), standing in line to check in and getting through security to my gate.
Flew LHR to MCO via EWR yesterday.
Second person off plane. Walked from plane to immigration and through using Global Entry in under five minutes. No checked bag and nothing to declare so under one minute through CBP. Five minutes between terminals and then one minute to get through TSA using PreCheck (which has finally been implemented in EWR).
Second person off plane. Walked from plane to immigration and through using Global Entry in under five minutes. No checked bag and nothing to declare so under one minute through CBP. Five minutes between terminals and then one minute to get through TSA using PreCheck (which has finally been implemented in EWR).
You should have seen immigration at LAX Talk about a zoo. Our bags were on the same carousel as the BA flight from LHR. The bags were coming out faster than the people who were all stuck in immigration. They had to stop the belt because it was overloaded, get the bags off it and then start it up again so that the rest of the bags could come through. By the time our bags had arrived only really the Global Entry mob had made it through
You should have seen immigration at LAX Talk about a zoo. Our bags were on the same carousel as the BA flight from LHR. The bags were coming out faster than the people who were all stuck in immigration. They had to stop the belt because it was overloaded, get the bags off it and then start it up again so that the rest of the bags could come through. By the time our bags had arrived only really the Global Entry mob had made it through
Hopefully more airports will add US pre-clearance facilities like they have at Abu Dhabi's airport. You go through immigration and customs before your flight departs so that the plane arrives as a domestic flight. This would have worked out great for us if the plane's cargo door wasn't frozen shut and took over an hour to open when we landed at the end of a snow storm.
You should have seen immigration at LAX Talk about a zoo. Our bags were on the same carousel as the BA flight from LHR. The bags were coming out faster than the people who were all stuck in immigration. They had to stop the belt because it was overloaded, get the bags off it and then start it up again so that the rest of the bags could come through. By the time our bags had arrived only really the Global Entry mob had made it through
I came back from Tahiti through LAX last year. Insanity. There must have been eight international heavies that landed within 20 minutes of each other. Hundreds of people in line. We got through within three minutes thanks to GE. Actually out total time at CBP was about 10 minutes as we had to stop and pay duty on a pearl necklace that we declared.
One bad thing about LAX is that when flights come in from Asia they often tear people's bags apart looking for counterfeit goods. That really slows everything down.
See, this is the problem with travelers. And I don't understand it.
Used to be that you had ONE ticket price. It was high - often over a grand to go a short distance one way - but with that ticket you got meals, entertainment, checked bags, larger carryon bags, more comfortable seats...It was just a decent experience.
Then the airline bean counters got smart with deregulation and said "ok, we'll dirt cheap the ticket but nickel-and-dime other charges so that it *SEEMS* cheaper to the customers!" Then customers leap all over the cheap tickets and then complain when they're stuck at the airport without a seat because all of these booking agencies can't seem to manage inventory well and nobody books directly with the airport. If there was ever a need for "ObamaFlight", now is it.
Meanwhile, you have people who complain about a $50 way to speed through TSA. $50. $10/year for 5 years. People spend more than that on cigarettes, booze, SuperBowl, etc. Things that don't benefit them long term.
Frankly, if you travel once a year, TSA Precheck may not be worth it only because you're not really dealing with the pain of it frequently.
If you travel to non-major airports primarily TSA Precheck won't be worth it because there aren't as many people going to Hangem, Montana, thus not as much pain.
But if you're a person who travels at least twice a year to major locations, i.e. New York, Miami, Orlando, San Diego, Cleveland, Houston, Philly, etc., TSA Precheck easily pays for itself after the first trip. If you've never done it, you don't know. Thus why I'm ok with them letting people sample it so that they understand
Is TSA pre-check really something that benefits one long term? Maybe it benefits you long-term, but I can't say the same for me. And, note, I fly through NYC at least twice a year and normally don't have to wait long to go through security; I'm not spending $85 (its not $50) to save a few minutes through security, especially if they are going to let others use the line (I could care less why they are letting others use the pre-check line. The fact remains that I and many others would be pissed that we have to share a line with people who didn't pay to use it, which ultimately adds to the time that it takes to go through that line!). The times where pre-check could've been useful to me (almost always at MSY) if I had it turned out to be not such great examples of efficiency as TSA, to handle the extra crowds during holiday travel, allowed regular Joe's to use the pre-check line, thereby creating a situation where there was no real difference in time between using the pre-check line and the non-pre-check line.
And, note, while pre-check is $85 for 5 years (or $17 per year), one still has to put $85 up front for the application; you're not on a payment plan where you're paying $17 per year. That's $85 that not everyone has or $85 that can be better spent by many people.
Are there people who benefit from pre-check to where they view it as a good investment? I'm sure there are. But it's not hard to see why some people aren't crazy about it or don't think its worth it.
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Now let's compute this.
