Beginning Dec. 20, Soldiers shall be eligible for expedited pre-flight screening at airports, meaning they’ll have the ability to get into the specific line where they don’t must remove their shoes and belts or take laptops out in their baggage.
All service members, including those within the Reserve, National Guard and Coast Guard, may be eligible for TSA Precheck Program, because the program is famous. Those within the Guard and Reserve don’t need to be in an activated status, and repair members don’t need to be in uniform, said Mark Howell, Transportation Security Administration spokesman.
Not eligible are personnel inside the Individual Ready Reserve, military retirees and military and Defense Department civilians, he added.
Currently, about 10 airports allow service members to turn their Common Access Cards and go into the expedited pre-check line, he said. On Dec. 20, “that’s going away,” Howell said.
Instead, service members might want to enter their CAC identification number into the “Known Traveler” field when booking airline tickets. All airlines have this field on their forms, he said, adding that the Defense Travel System, or DTS, also has a Known Traveler field where the CAC ID number could be added. Soldiers should check with their DTS representative for more info.
Once the Soldier books his or her airline ticket, the airline sends the CAC ID number and the Soldier’s information to TSA’s Secure Flight office, a program that maintains a criminal and terrorist watch list, he said.
When the Soldier prints out his or her boarding pass on the airport, a “TSA Secure Flight” logo will appear on the top and that informs TSA personnel to permit the Soldier to get into the expedited, pre-flight line, he said.
So essentially, the simplest thing Soldiers should do, he said, is to make sure they enter their CAC number when booking either through DTS or online for non-official travel, he said. TSA does all of the behind-the-scenes security legwork.
A caveat to this system, Howell said, is that non-military spouses don’t seem to be eligible, nor are their children, with the exception of those aged 12 and under.
However, Howell said, TSA will soon offer them and most people the similar TSA Precheck Program benefits service members get, but there’ll be an $85 fee to be eligible and it’s only good for 5 years.
TSA is worked up about extending this system now to service members, he said, because about 25 percent of TSA’s workforce are military veterans, including Howell, who’s a military veteran.
“In the longer term, we’d desire to facilitate expedited pre-flight screening for increasingly more Americans,” he said, as TSA is “becoming more like a risk-based, intelligence-driven organization.”
TSA is operating on various how to expedite travelers, but new initiatives aren’t yet able to be announced publicly, he said.
“It’s better for us and it’s better for the traveling public, who won’t ought to wait as long,” Howell said.
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