The Eyes Have It: Airport to Debut Optical Service

By Neil Vigdor, The Stamford Advocate, Conn.

Aug. 18–WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. — With the blink of an eye and touch of a thumb, passengers will be able to cut the security line starting next week at Westchester County Airport.

Enrollees in a voluntary passenger screening program will have their own express lane at the airport’s security checkpoint starting Monday, allowing them to bypass others waiting to have their identification and tickets checked. They can head straight to the metal detectors and X-ray machines, where a concierge will help them with their carry-on items.

Run by a private New York City identity check firm, the program costs $100 a year and requires customers to provide airport screeners with information such as fingerprints and iris images from their eyes.

“Basically, it takes you to the head of the line,” Westchester County Executive Andrew Spano said yesterday during a news conference announcing the new service.

The airport is marketing the program to business travelers who have come to expect perks flying out of Westchester but have had to put up with longer security lines because of an influx of vacationers.

“We’re kind of crunching the business traveler, who’s our bread and butter,” said Peter Scherrer, the airport’s manager. The airport serves nearly twice as many passengers than last year because of the introduction of low-fare service to Florida by JetBlue and AirTran airways.

Scherrer said the county approached about six firms that offer the service about expanding to Westchester.

Verified Identity Pass, the parent company of Clear Registered Traveler, was the only firm that responded. Court TV founder and former Newsweek columnist Steven Brill, who is the company’s chief executive officer and chairman, said the venture had prospects for success despite the airport’s small size because of the high volume of business travelers.

“That’s why this airport is so interesting to us,” said Brill, who lives in Katonah, N.Y., and regularly flies out of Westchester.

Brill said he hatched the idea of a security express lane while working on a column for Newsweek about air travel after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Clear has 56,000 customers and is offered at nine airports, including JFK and Newark Liberty, according to the company.

The service will soon be at three more airports, including Westchester and LaGuardia. Enrollees also are allowed to use the express lanes of competitors at other airports and vice-versa as part of an agreement with the government, Brill said.

Westchester County officials said it takes about 15 minutes to pass through security at the airport, more than three times longer than Brill boasted it takes with Clear.

To join the program, travelers set up an account on the firm’s Web site and then go to an enrollment booth at a participating airport.

Travelers are asked to show a passport and another form of identification that are scanned and cross-checked against a government list of suspected terrorists.

Next, in a scenario befitting “Minority Report,” a movie in which straphangers use retinal scanners to exit the subway, customers must provide their biometric information for identification purposes — 10 fingerprints and an iris scan of each eye.

Enrollment is limited to U.S. citizens and permanent legal residents, who undergo a background check by the Transportation Security Administration. Established after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the agency also monitors who is enrolled in the program and can revoke security clearance at any time.

After two to four weeks, participants who are approved for the program receive a card encoded with personal information to use to enter the express lane and insert into a computer kiosk. Once there, they look into the iris scanner and place a finger on the machine.

The express lane will be open all day Monday and Tuesday, and Thursday afternoons, which traditionally are the busiest travel times at the airport.

The program eventually hopes to install special screening devices that will check shoes for metal and explosives.

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Copyright (c) 2007, The Stamford Advocate, Conn.

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