Say goodbye to fingerprints and eye scanners: CLEAR® Plus has finally launched its new face-scanning pods to help customers save time at airport security.
CLEAR, the identity security company offering special airport security lines all over the U.S., recently unveiled its new “Lane of the Future” pods at 23 U.S. airports after announcing the new product way back in November 2023. The rollout included New Orleans International Airport (MSY), where we tried out the new “EnVe” pods this week.
Instead of using CLEAR’s clunky old scanners that many travelers have endured for years, the new pods simply take a quick scan of your face and move you on your way in seconds. My recent experience was much faster than using the old CLEAR finger or eye scanners. For travelers who have gone through Global Entry kiosks after returning from an international trip, the process will feel very similar, albeit slightly slower, because a CLEAR representative has to tap the screen to activate it first.
My wife, pictured here, walked up to the machine, and the little glowing circle quickly found her face. She was verified and went through the line in no time. The CLEAR employee just had to tap one button to get the scanner on the screen: no log-ins, no extra hassle, or boarding pass scan. Just a smile at the camera, and your info pops up letting you know that you’re good to go. It was significantly faster and less annoying than the old way.
That said, the process was actually too fast for the rate at which TSA could screen travelers at MSY on Sunday … so everyone using CLEAR Lane of the Future had to wait in line to use the pods and then wait in line again for the screeners to process TSA PreCheck customers.
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In a November release, CLEAR promised a verification system that is five times faster at the 23 airports where the new pods were rolled out. While the start-to-finish security process wasn’t any faster than usual when I tried it at MSY on Sunday, the CLEAR portion certainly was.
One traveler in line in front of us still had to finish his CLEAR NextGen Identity+ enrollment, which CLEAR has constantly been stopping travelers to do over the past 14 months or so, but other than that, every customer sailed through the kiosk in a manner of seconds.
According to CLEAR, the new EnVe pods will be rolled out across all 58 of CLEAR’s airports in 2025. As of publication, they’re only available at these select 23 airports:
- Austin-Bergstrom International Airport (AUS)
- Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport (BHM)
- Buffalo Niagara International Airport (BUF)
- Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport (CVG)
- Denver International Airport (DEN)
- George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH)
- Greenville–Spartanburg International Airport (GSP)
- John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK)
- LaGuardia Airport (LGA)
- Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport (MSY)
- Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR)
- Oakland International Airport (OAK)
- Orlando International Airport (MCO)
- Palm Beach International Airport (PBI)
- Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport (PHX)
- Pittsburgh International Airport (PIT)
- Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA)
- Sacramento International Airport (SMF)
- Salt Lake City International Airport (SLC)
- San Antonio International Airport (SAT)
- San Francisco International Airport (SFO)
- San Jose Mineta International Airport (SJC)
- Will Rogers Airport (OKC)
From my brief experience (which is what you want when going through security), these pods seem like a big timesaver for both the traveler and the CLEAR employee. Only a few employees were working this CLEAR lane – two operating the machines and two liaisons for the TSA officers.
It was an incredibly smooth trip through the CLEAR lane in a time when that’s becoming more and more rare. We’ve been chronicling this service’s issues over the last year.
CLEAR’s recent track record has been shaky at best as it’s expanded rapidly to more airports … and increased in price, too. Whether you get through security in minutes or watch as the TSA PreCheck line passes you by has started to feel like a coin flip – unacceptable odds for a service that costs a whopping $199 a year. It’s notoriously bad in airports like Atlanta (ATL) and Denver (DEN), where bloated rolls of flyers with Delta or United status get discounts on CLEAR Plus or have top-dollar Amex travel cards in their wallet that cover the cost of enrollment altogether.
The service was designed to speed up security by replacing manual ID checks at TSA queues with fingerprint and iris scan verification, yet CLEAR members have been increasingly subjected to random ID checks over the last year. (Those aren’t going away with Lane of the Future, either.)
While there are still countless CLEAR success stories … it has become incredibly hit or miss, with wait times that vary wildly based on what airport you’re flying out of and when you’re traveling. But the rollout of this Lane of the Future product, if successful, should alleviate some of these problems by processing CLEAR members through security much, much faster. And if you can get the cost of CLEAR covered by an American Express card, it’s still a great travel tool to have in your toolbox.
Bottom Line
CLEAR has unveiled its new Lane of the Future EnVe pods at 23 airports. In our brief experience, the facial scanning verification process was much easier and faster than the old verification kiosks.
While CLEAR has often failed to provide an expedited security experience (like it promises) over the last year, this new product, if rolled out quickly across the U.S., should help travelers get through security faster in the years to come.
