TSA PreCheck Expands to Virgin America
Virgin America has become the 6th airline to partner with the TSA and the U.S. Customs and Border Protection to offer their customers TSA PreCheck. They join Delta Air Lines, Alaska, United, American, and US Airways, which allow trusted travelers to pre-screen and breeze through expedited security for domestic flights and select international flights.
Virgin America guests who are enrolled in U.S. Customs & Border Protection Trusted Traveler programs will be eligible to participate in the initiative when traveling with Virgin America.
Virgin America outlined on their website how you can participate.
How to Participate:
Starting in June 2013, U.S. citizens currently enrolled in a U.S. Customs & Border Protection (CBP) Trusted Traveler program, including Global Entry, are automatically eligible to participate in TSA PreCheck.
If you’re a participant in a Customs and Border Protection Program (CBP) and an Elevate member: Add your PASS ID number to your Elevate profile so we can automatically send it to TSA when you make future reservations on Virgin America:
- Sign in to your Elevate account at virginamerica.com.
- Within My Account, select the ‘My Contact info’ tab.
- Select to edit your personal information.
- Enter your CBP-assigned PASS ID number in the ‘Known Traveler Number’ field.
TSA PreCheck Locations for Virgin America:
| Virgin America Airport Location | Designated Security Checkpoint |
|---|---|
| Anchorage, AK (ANC) | South Checkpoint |
| Austin, TX (AUS) | Checkpoint 2 |
| Dallas, TX (DFW) | Checkpoint E15 |
| Las Vegas, NV (LAS) | Terminal 3 (from June 4, 2013) |
| New York, NY (JFK) | Terminal 4 - Main |
| Orlando, FL (MCO) | West Terminal |
| Philadelphia, PA (PHL) | Checkpoint E |
| Portland, OR (PDX) | Checkpoint D |
| San Francisco, CA (SFO) | Terminal 2 |
| Seattle, WA (SEA) | Middle Checkpoint |
| Washington D.C. (IAD) | Main |
Right now it appears that the only way you can participate with Virgin America is if you have Global Entry. However later this year, Virgin America will contact eligible Elevate members (most likely Silver and Gold Elevate members) with a personal invite to participate in the initiative. When it comes to locations, one of Virgin America's major hubs Los Angeles, does not have PreCheck, so if you are flying through there, you won't be able to take advantage of this there.
You'll notice that Terminal 4 at New York-JFK is listed on their site, which also serves Delta Air Lines, so this is a big improvement for Delta at JFK. I used to only want to fly American out of JFK since they were the only ones that had PreCheck at JFK, but Delta has added PreCheck at both Terminal 4 and Terminal 2 at JFK, so if you are flying Delta out of New York you should be covered. United still needs to get with the game at JFK though, since they currently do not offer it there, and it makes me think twice about flying them out of New York because of it.
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