Choosing Your Self-Select Security Lines at the Airport

Locations in this article:  Salt Lake City, UT

If you’ve flown in the past year, you may have noticed signs trying to separate different types of travelers at the security line. But how do you know which line is right for you?

According to the TSA, the average person takes about 32 seconds to get their belongings onto the security conveyer belt, and take about 42 seconds to put themselves back together at the end of the checkpoint.

To make things move a little faster, the TSA launched Self-Select Lane in Salt Lake City last year.

Since then, this concept has grown to 46 major airports around the U.S.

The way it works is that lines are divided up into three categories: The green lane is for families with small children, those who need special assistance, occasional travelers aren’t familiar with airport security procedures; the blue lane is for the “casual traveler,” who is familiar with TSA rules; the expert, or the black diamond lane, is for frequent travelers who know what 3-1-1- means, and who have their shoes off before they even get to the conveyer belt.

The TSA claims that those expert lanes have gotten travelers through at least 21 percent faster.

But even if you think you might be an expert traveler, please don’t slow up the line if you’re trying to sneak through a 4-ounce bottle of liquid or you put on your lace-up boots that day.

It’s not a contest!

Read more about Travel Safety & Security here.

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