For once, the TSA is not to blame. Doubtless, the Transportation Security Administration will get blamed, but the demise of Clear, the privately owned firm that promised to get flyers through TSA checkpoints more quickly, is more complex than federal obstructionism. The card company, founded by noted journalist Steve Brill, had begun with the premise that if it could provide the TSA with a promise that its members were indeed who they said they were, they could get through the TSA's airport checkpoints more quickly. Frequent flyers only had to give Clear a fingerprint and an eye scan and let it do a little background check; in return for that and their $200 annual fee, road warriors and other knowledgeable flyers would go to a special lane where they underwent the usual TSA checks.The difference was that this was a lane where everyone else knew just what to do, rather than becoming flustered by such challenges as opening their bags or keeping their boarding passes out.
But Clear said late on Monday that its bankers and lenders had run out of patience and it was shutting down. The TSA, even though culturally wary of cooperating with a private vendor and deeply suspicious of 'special treatment' for any group of flyers, had worked with Clear, making room for it at airport checkpoints.
TSA even adopted (or just plain took) one of Clear's basic premises: segregating experienced flyers from the infrequent or the frequently flustered. The agency late last year began offering 'self-select' lanes at many airports, letting the true road warrior get into different and presumably faster lanes than the mom and pop who fly once a year. (Well, maybe you can blame TSA after all.)
What happens to the other 'trusted traveler' firm, FLO, is an open question. Shares in FLO have been at penny stock levels for some time, so its future is less than clear.
(Photo: Denver airport, via Flickr)
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