Per CBS:
For decades, the airport security checkpoint has marked the end of the road for friends and relatives seeing off a traveler. That is changing for some travelers.
The Transportation Security Administration has launched a new program at some U.S. airports allowing eligible TSA PreCheck members without plane tickets to pass through security and enter the gates, reviving a tradition that largely disappeared after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks nearly 25 years ago.
I’ve seen a lot of people making fun of this — often in genuinely amusing ways: “Great! Now I can finally pay $40 for parking and then eat at an airport Chili’s.” But, jokes aside, I earnestly love this change and hope that it is implemented nationwide.
I remember the pre-9/11 system pretty well. As a kid, I often flew from England to the United States to visit family friends in California and Arizona, and, invariably, those friends would meet me at the gate. Before 2001, our friend in California liked to tell me that flying in America was “like taking a bus.” This was true — and much more so than in England, which was already more locked down. Every time I’d leave her, she would come with me through security to the gate at John Wayne Airport, and all but walk me onto the plane. That was nice, and I miss it. If I had the chance to do that for people visiting me, I’d take it every time.
And, of course, if this system is adopted, I will have that chance, because I’m an immigrant who lives four thousand miles away from his family. I hate that, when I drop my parents off at the airport, I have to leave them at security hours before their plane takes off rather than go through with them, have a coffee or dinner, and hug them before they board. And, on the other end, I’d love to be able to go through and meet their plane when it arrives. Yes, yes, the process, if adopted, will be much more bureaucratic than it was before: To qualify, one will need TSA Pre and to apply for a “gate pass,” so we won’t be returning to the world that enabled those scenes in the movies where the boy realizes his mistake and runs through the airport to tell the girl that he loves her and that she shouldn’t get on the plane. But, bureaucracy notwithstanding, it will still represent an improvement over the status quo. For reasons both understandable and silly, air travel has become much less human since 9/11. I’d welcome this slight return.