Back in line, suckers: Clear Lanes closes abruptly, angering fliers everywhere
Filed under: Transportation, Travel, Consumer Complaints
UPDATE Less than 24 hours after closing its service to move frequent travelers to the front of airport security lines, Clear announced on its Web site today that no, it won't be refunding any customers who bought $199 annual memberships.
And for any of its 250,000 customers worried about having their iris scans, fingerprints or other personal information sold or somehow ending up in another company's hands, Clear's Web site says: "Applicant and member data is currently secured in accordance with the Transportation Security Administration's Security, Privacy and Compliance Standards. Verified Identity Pass, Inc. will continue to secure such information and will take appropriate steps to delete the information."
A TSA spokesman told me that the agency doesn't "really have a dog in this fight" and said in a press release that 'TSA has no comment on Verified Identity Pass' announcement. The Clear program was market-drive, private sector venture, offered in partnership with airports and airlines in certain locations."
Verified Identity Pass couldn't negotiate credit to continue operating and closed service Monday night at the 20 airports it operated in across the country.
Clear -- the company that runs paid security lanes at 20 U.S. airports to speed its 250,000 members through airports -- is out of business.
Before the company's announcement that its "Clear lanes" would cease operation at 11 p.m. PST Monday, June 22, travelers were already complaining on the Internet that the traveler's best friend was out of business and that more people would have to wait in line again.
Most of the company's Web links were left with the simple message that Clear is ceasing operations and that its parent company, Verified Identity Pass, Inc., "has been unable to negotiate an agreement with its senior creditor to continue operations."
Clear members paid up to $199 for an annual membership for access to designated security lanes at participating airports nationwide. Some members paid three years in advance, and the company bragged of a 90% membership renewal rate.
Members provided biometric data, which was encoded on a card, for the promise of a speedier and convenient trip through airport security, according to an Atlanta Business Chronicle story. Their fingerprints and iris images are captured and their identifications are validated at Clear enrollment locations.
Lines at airports will probably be longer Tuesday, as some of the more than 250,000 Clear members nationwide who are flying will get in line with everyone else to get through security.
Before the closing, airport officials in Atlanta have said that additional non-Clear security lanes added at their airport have kept wait times below 10 minutes on average, making Clear lanes less advantageous to experienced fliers.
According to a press release that Clear put out on March 4, Clear lanes have been used nearly 2.5 million times nationwide since the service started on July 19, 2005.
The airports that Clear operated at are: Albany, Atlanta, Boston's Logan (Terminal A), Cincinnati, Denver, Indianapolis, Jacksonville, LaGuardia (Central Terminal B and Terminal D), Little Rock, New York JFK (Terminals 1, 2, 3, 4 and 7) Newark (Terminal B1 and B2), Oakland, Orlando, Reno, Salt Lake City, San Francisco, San Jose, Washington, D.C.'s Reagan and Dulles, and Westchester.
Business travelers were targeted by the company, which was launched by Court TV founder Steve Brill.
Aaron Crowe is an unemployed journalist in the San Francisco Bay Area. Read about his job search at www.AaronCrowe.net
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
6-23-2009 @ 1:31PM
jdogg92056 said...
"250,000 .. Members provided.. Their fingerprints and iris images " and "paid up to $199 for an annual membership ... Some members paid three years in advance"
And now their money, and their biometric data is gone. I'm beginning to think P.T. Barnum was right.
Reply
6-23-2009 @ 2:27PM
Aldred said...
ROTFLMAO ....... TSA has found an INNOVATIVE way to ROB passengers ........
"Integrity, Team Spirit, Innovation" is sewn around the border of the TSA (T-errorists S-talking A-irports) patch. Have you EVER seen an organization that had to SEW A REMINDER not to STEAL, LIE, and CHEAT on their own shoulders!!!! They STEAL from the "confiscated" items, BACK-STAB the PASSENGERS (and their CO-Workers) and "INNOVATIVELY" CHEAT on their own tests.
Security Theater? At least the KEYSTONE COPS were FUNNY!
Supervisors PADDING their hours to make house payments.
Supervisors staggering in drunk.
Supervisors exclaiming all NON-Christians should leave the country
Supervisors expressing their desire to see U.S. Senators DEAD
Real good organization.
The TSA is specificly designed to lull the American Public into accepting random, pointless, searches at the whim of the government. Look at them. TSA screeners are being trained to be smiling and polite. WHY? To appear benign and unthreatening as they strip you of your Freedom. Look at their faces, if YOU seriously believed the next passenger (PAX) might be an armed and murderously suicidal killer, would you be all relaxed and cheery? If you seriously believed that the next suitcase you open may blow you to Kingdom Come, would you be a Perky Pixie? If you do NOT believe that ......... WHY ARE YOU HERE!?
Reply
6-24-2009 @ 7:42AM
Nicolae said...
In 1492, Chemor, chief Rabbi of Spain, wrote to the Grand Sanhedrin, which had its seat in Constantinople, for advice, when a Spanish law threatened expulsion.2 This was the reply:
” Beloved brethren in Moses, we have received your letter in which you tell us of the anxieties and misfortunes which you are enduring. We are pierced by as great pain to hear it as yourselves.
The advice of the Grand Satraps and Rabbis is the following:
1. As for what you say that the King of Spain obliges you to become Christians: do it, since you cannot do otherwise.
2. As for what you say about the command to despoil you of your property: make your sons merchants that they may despoil, little by little, the Christians of theirs.
3. As for what you say about making attempts on your lives: make your sons doctors and apothecaries, that they may take away Christians’ lives.
4. As for what you say of their destroying your synagogues: make your sons canons and clerics in order that they may destroy their churches. [Emphasis mine]
5. As for the many other vexations you complain of: arrange that your sons become advocates and lawyers, and see that they always mix in affairs of State, that by putting Christians under your yoke you may dominate the world and be avenged on them.
6. Do not swerve from this order that we give you, because you will find by experience that, humiliated as you are, you will reach the actuality of power.
(Signed) PRINCE OF THE JEWS OF CONSTANTINOPLE.”
2. The reply is found in the sixteenth century Spanish book, La Silva Curiosa, by Julio-Iniguez de Medrano (Paris, Orry, 1608), on pages 156 and 157, with the following explanation: “This letter following was found in the archives of Toledo by the Hermit of Salamanca, (while) searching the ancient records of the kingdoms of Spain; and, as it is expressive and remarkable, I wish to write it here.” — vide, photostat facing page 80.
~ The above was quoted from Waters Flowing Eastward by Paquita de Shishmareff, pp. 73-74
Reply
6-24-2009 @ 10:30AM
Jack Trent said...
You nailed it..... but the phony holo museum attack will make people like you and me into haters..... not prophets.
ITS THE JEWS - STUPID!
My family argues about this every holiday... half hate Jews and all they do and stand for.... the other half keeps drinking the kool aid.