Un-Clear

Travel Log: 3, March 2008. DEN to SFO. I'm on the 8:19AM United flight on my "bus" to work. I take this flight so often, I am on a first name basis with the crew of these legs between DEN and SFO. But today I've got it on me. I've got the travel-elixir literally in my wallet that will provide an Alka-Seltzer like solution to the indigestion of business travel.

Of course, I'm speaking of: The FLY CLEAR card.

By now, you the business traveler have faced it all in your travels. You are scarred and battle worn from dragging Tumi over nighters around countless arports, lugging your laptops and contributing to your debilitating case of workman's comp due to spine issues, all the while each leg adding to the Premier Executive status you secretly wish you didn't have, yet can't live without. So, the injection of Fly Clear and new competitors creeping up into the travel market make traveling for hardened folks like us theoretically more 'fluid', tolerable, quicker. So, how was my first experience?

D-E-B-A-C-L-E.

Dear Fly Clear: Can you say PROCESS? After $128 bucks spent, my privacy violated to ensure I am not a terrorist via some sort of 'TSA' background check and a requirement to have my retinas and finger prints scanned to get my card in the first place (which in itself was such a 'sub debacle' given their pile of crap systems refused to work in taking my retina scans and finger prints and forced me to stay for an hour and 10 minutes versus the advertised 10 minutes). Eventually, I got 'cleared' and the the clear blue Fly Clear card made its way to me in the mail and I assumed this would be a totally dialed experience moving forward. It's all about the software and data integration underpinning this fledgling company, right?

My first sortie through the Fly Clear system in DEN went something like this. Note, I am using the BPMN here Fly Clear, so buy a tool...or better yet use a free one like EA/Studio Community Edition for cryin' out loud. Granted this is an intentionally bad model, but you'll get the gist. At least I DOCUMENTED it. More than Fly Clear did in its due diligence to insert their company into an already pathetic set of TSA processes (which seem to change airport by airport):

So there it is. My rant at how absolutely let down I am/was with my first experience with Fly Clear. It is a galactically big problem space and I do not want to trivialize that. I would not sign up for trying to integrate processes with the TSA given their current state of affairs, But what will this all stem? Will airports allow for free competition from FlyClear and yet unborn frequent traveler security companies? How many lines will grow? Can the (large) airports even accommodate that? Will these companies be allowed to take on their own screening? How will they each screen/hire THEIR employees to ensure we're collectively safe as travelers? With each company born and each new employee hired, there will be a maddening influx of new entry points into the 'flight system' putting us all at risk. All of this just BEGS questions yet begs an even further study of process and the goals attempted to be reached....which at the core should ensure traveler safety with the SIDE benefits of frequent traveler ease and fluidity.

I don't see it now.

Until next time...

Thanks for reading,
Greg