This isn’t a gripe about inexperienced travelers trying PreCheck for the first time post. However, I feel like I need to say something. I purposely avoid traveling on Monday mornings as a matter of practice, but sometimes, it can’t be helped. This was one of those mornings. I’ve seen lines for PreCheck before, and I’ve posted about them here. I’ve even seen lines on Monday morning in Atlanta before….and I’ve posted about them here. It’s just that I’ve never seen a line for PreCheck in Atlanta like the line I witnessed for the south checkpoint this morning. After dropping two bags off with Delta (yes, it’s a special kind of business trip), I headed for security where I found not just a line, but a really big line. An enormously huge line – like….I couldn’t see the end of it. I think it went all the way back to near the food court area.

I should have taken a picture, but you know, I always fear being accosted by an overzealous airport employee so hopefully, you will take my word for it. I usually just fall in, and things move quickly enough. It’s worth an extra wait just to keep my shoes on and my various electronic attachments in place. But something compelled me to rebel just a little bit this morning. 🙂 I walked past the labyrinth of a line, past the main checkpoint which was its own kind of special this morning, and over to the north side checkpoint. I’m not going to pretend it was great, because it was packed too, but not ridiculously so. There was a line, but it did not snake past my ability to see the end. In fact, it did not extend outside the main queue. The whole thing took about 10 minutes, maybe 15, and I was in.

Seriously, I’m all for expanding PreCheck, but the checkpoints are going to have to be reorganized to recognize the expanded availability of it to more travelers. Even if the wait time this morning wasn’t ultimately out of hand for me, the truth is that most people will just fall in and not move to the other side of the terminal unless someone tells them to. I know it’s selfish, but I miss the old days of PreCheck.

-MJ, May 12, 2014