ST. LOUIS —
Thursday morning, the St. Louis Airport Authority approved a plan to bring in new technology to the airport that could save you time getting through the security line, but it comes at a cost.
A new option called Clear uses a scan of your fingerprints and eyes, to check you into your flight instead of the traditional boarding pass and ID.
Like TSA Pre-Check, Clear passengers will get their own express line at security, but to become a member, you have to pay $179 a year.
We ran that idea by a few passengers.
"It’ll make a lot of difference, especially at a high volume travel time like during the summer and holidays and things like that," said Stephanie Farwell.
"Sure I’d like to try it," said Diane Southard, until we told her the price. Then she replied, "No, I wouldn’t try it. I can pull out a lot of boarding passes for 200 dollars."
If anyone could stand not to have to stand around, it would be Phil Byrne.
"I probably fly to 2-3 cities per week," Byrne said.
He said, there just aren't enough cities participating for him to sign on. St. Louis would only be Clear's 35th airport to adopt the technology.
"It’s a shorter line but it’s shorter by a matter of minutes as opposed to 45 minutes to an hour, whatever those lines can be," he said.
Just to be clear, the Clear biogenic scanner saves you time presenting your boarding pass in the security line, but after that, you'd still have to go through traditional airport security including the full-body scanner.
The only way to avoid that part of security is to sign up for TSA Pre-Check, which is another $85 every five years.
Phil said he'll stick to what he has for now.
"I haven’t seen where Clear has a huge advantage over TSA Pre-Check so given the choice, I stay with TSA Pre," said Byrne.
Stephanie said she would pay just about anything to not have to panic.
"It’s going to make it much better for everybody," she said.
A spokesperson for the airport anticipates Clear to launch at Lambert by the end of February.
