Just as drivers with an E-ZPass cruise through highway tolls, BWI travelers will soar past long security check lines with a new program beginning this fall at Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport.
BWI put out a request for bids this week for a registered traveler program, which allows fliers to pay an annual fee for a pre-checked ID card. Passengers with that ID card will have access to a different, shorter line at security checkpoints but will still go through basic screening procedures.
The airport spent several months studying the program, operated by private companies with the support of the Transportation Security Administration. Airport officials hope to have the program in place by late this year, according to BWI spokesman Jonathan Dean.
“It?s been a long process,” Dean said. “BWI has spent recent months examining the program and how it would work here. There have been a number of questions and issues, as simple as [the compatibility of] the basic infrastructure of the airport.”
BWI will be the 20th U.S. airport to offer the service, which was piloted in Orlando, Fla., in 2005 and spread nationwide in January 2007.
The program began at Washington Dulles International and Ronald Reagan Washington National airports in mid-March and is operated at both by New York-based Verified Identity Pass Inc. Chief Executive Officer Steven Brill said more than 20,000 people have signed up for the program at those two airports, and said the company plans to bid for the BWI contract.
The company charges a $100 annual fee for the cards as well as a one-time $28 background check fee. To enroll, applicants must provide two forms of government-issued ID and a photo, as well as fingerprints or iris images, one of which must be verified each time the applicant travels.
Brill said his company speeds up checkpoint throughput by more than 30 percent, and cardholders see a typical wait time of about five minutes. A company survey found those customers fly an average of about 60 to 70 times a year.
But ID holders will still have to go through the same scanning and screening process as other passengers, said TSA spokeswoman Lauren Wolf.
“At this point the benefit for passengers is limited to [the length of] the line,” she said.
