Clear-ed for takeoff - Westfair Communications

Seven of 10 passengers who pass through security checks at Westchester County Airport travel on business. For those frequent fliers, getting to the departure gate should be easier with a contractor”™s recent launch of its branded version of the federal Registered Traveler Program card.

Available to all travelers who pass a federal security check, that terminal comfort and convenience can be bought at a yearly price of $100.

Verified Identity Pass Inc., a four-year-old Manhattan company that has become the nation”™s leading private operator of airport “fast lanes” for registered travelers, last week added the Westchester airport to its fast-expanding Clear business in the metropolitan area and nationwide. Though new applicants will have a few weeks”™ wait for their Clear pass, previously enrolled members can already swipe their biometric identity cards in the company”™s Westchester machines in a side lane that, much like the New York EZ- Pass toll system, speeds up one”™s movement through the terminal”™s human traffic.

Operated by the company”™s own “concierge-type staff” rather than federal Transportation Security Administration (TSA) employees, “Our lane is separate,” Clear spokeswoman Cindy Rosenthal said. “We call it a designated lane. You actually bypass and avoid the entire security queue of people.”

Rosenthal said the fast-lane system”™s appeal to travelers is “the predictability factor. We move things a lot quicker. It”™s predictably under five minutes. It can be as quick as a minute.”

Clear cardholders still will pass through TSA metal detectors and present their carry-ons for X-ray inspection. Rosenthal said the company is seeking wider federal approval of a shoe-scanning technology that allows cardholders to keep their shoes on when passing through security. She said the shoe scanner is already used in Florida”™s Orlando International Airport, where Verified Identity Pass and its primary contractor, Lockheed Martin, launched the Clear program in 2005.

“It”™s like the E-Z pass on the highway,” Rosenthal said of the airport convenience. “You don”™t have to build a bigger bridge. You”™re just moving more traffic from one side to another.”

Slow-moving airport lines and frustrating travel delays as a result of the heightened security after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks moved CEO Steven Brill to found Verified Identity Pass Inc. in 2003. Brill, who has a family home in Bedford, is a 57-year-old lawyer, author and former journalist who also founded Court TV and American Lawyer and Brill”™s Content magazines.

Clear, the company”™s trademarked security product, is a “common-sense risk management solution to the security bottlenecks that are the byproduct of the post-September 11 world,” Brill said in an online letter to members.

In the future, he said, the Clear program will be interoperable with any other competing registered traveler program so that members can use their cards at any airport.

Westchester County Executive Andrew Spano said the new service at the county airport, which will operate at no cost to the county, “will not only benefit preregistered travelers, it will also shorten the security lines for other airport passengers. It will make traveling easier for all our customers.”

Initially, Clear lanes will be open during peak travel hours on Mondays and Tuesdays from 6 to 10:30 a.m. and Thursdays from 1 to 6 p.m. As demand for the service grows, hours of operation will be extended, company officials said.

Travelers can begin the application process online at www.flyclear.com or stop at the Clear kiosk at the airport, where their fingerprints and iris images are captured and their passports and driver”™s licenses are scanned. The information is submitted to the TSA for clearance. Members can expect to receive their cards in two to four weeks.

The Clear registration kiosk will be at the airport full-time through August, after which it will travel to major corporations and businesses in the area to enroll members, Rosenthal said. The Westchester County Association and The Business Council of Westchester, hailing the program”™s benefits to their business members, have offered to help the company with its marketing effort here.

Clear lanes also have been opened at airports in Albany, Cincinnati, Indianapolis, San Jose and Little Rock, Ark., and at certain terminals in Newark and JFK international airports. Clear lanes will soon open at LaGuardia and San Francisco international airports.

The Clear program has more than 55,000 members, Rosenthal said. When launched in Orlando two years ago, 35,000 travelers enrolled. Ninety percent of those startup enrollees renewed their passes in 2006, she said.

“The predictability, you can”™t beat it if you”™re a frequent traveler,” she said.