New Screening for Verified Travellers

[dawnvip]

Not sure if this will actually save much time, but glad that I have Nexus and will see how it goes for upcoming trip in July!

 

https://www.canada.ca/en/transport-canada/news/2023/05/minister-of-transport-announces-new-verified-traveller-program-to-improve-the-security-screening-experience-for-eligible-travellers.html

[ski ww]

Watched the news about it last night, looks like it will speed up checking in. 

[CDNPolar]

Believe me it saves time.  

 

I have just flown through Melbourne Australia and then SFO.

 

I did not have to remove liquids or laptops in either city and the lines moved much more quickly... much more quickly than where all this stuff has to be pulled out.

 

Travelling for work I two laptops and then the bag of small liquids...  all this just stayed where it was.

 

Imagine - just put your bag on the rollers and you are done.  Walk through.

 

In these cities, your liquids don't have to be limited to 100ml either.

 

It may not seem like much for one person, but look into your experience where everyone that does not travel regularly struggles to have all this ready to pull out and you will understand why the lines will move faster.

 

Also no belts, or shoes off... 

 

 

[Fouremco]

Ottawa area residents are somewhat miffed over the decision not to include YOW in this new program. Particularly as the GOC gave no indication as to why.

[dawnvip]

Ah yes, the occasional traveller is often the bane of security checks!

 

My concern is the devil in the details... I'm a frequent flyer too, so am always prepared for the speediest "strip and scan" (no belt, slip on shoes, nothing in my pockets, etc) and always use a nexus lane if available. I also try to avoid obvious occasional travellers ahead of me in line. I remember seeing someone wearing jeans that had been bedazzled with metal studs everywhere. 

 

At YVR, screening differs depending where your gate is! If you go through B or US security, there are the full body scanners so no shoes off required. If you go through C, its the old time walk through scan, so everything has to come off (I can't remember what Int'l has). Will the newer scanners be required for the new Verified Traveller service? 

 

I am also always waiting for the CATSA screener to get my bag back. I can't think of a single time where my bag made it through screening before I did. Carry-on screening takes longer, and its often for quite awhile while the CATSA operator backs up and scans, backs up and scans again, someone else's bag. (and mine behind that one!) I've even had to wait for the second screener to go through my bag, only to tell me that i have to use their plastic ziploc 1L bag! So I move my 5 x 100 mL items into the "approved" ziploc and away I went. Ridiculous. 

 

Something tells me that CATSA staffing and training will be the ultimate determination of whether this new system works well or not! 

[1982CruzStart]

19 minutes ago, dawnvip said:

only to tell me that i have to use their plastic ziploc 1L bag! So I move my 5 x 100 mL items into the "approved" ziploc and away I went. Ridiculous. 

When i flew through YYZ last May, i had the same experience. I was using the proper size bag just not the one from the government and the security guy insisted on moving everything from my bag to the 'official' bag. What a waste of time and it is no wonder that the lines were backed up so badly when you have agents wasting their time on someone conforming to the rules. NOwhere on the gov website requires you to use the 'official bag' just that the bag be a certain size. 

[Tango99]

‘For now’, the new process applies only to Canada’s 4 ‘international’ airports ie: Montreal, Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver.  So from my Ottawa perspective, it’s not a convenience at all for anyone from the Maritimes, Manitoba, and a greater chunk of Ontario and Quebec who are currently routed through Montreal or Toronto, sometimes both…. And yay, in July Ottawa gets its first international flight, Air France, once a week. It’s a start I suppose…..

[gnome12]

1 hour ago, 1982CruzStart said:

When i flew through YYZ last May, i had the same experience. I was using the proper size bag just not the one from the government and the security guy insisted on moving everything from my bag to the 'official' bag. What a waste of time and it is no wonder that the lines were backed up so badly when you have agents wasting their time on someone conforming to the rules. NOwhere on the gov website requires you to use the 'official bag' just that the bag be a certain size. 

When I flew to Europe last fall (from YYZ) they insisted that I use their 1 litre bag even though the one I was using was supposedly TSA approved and their limit is 1 quart which is smaller than a litre. It was the first time they had ever questioned my container for liquids, and I had used the old one many times. 

[Fouremco]

The "official" CATSA bags are available for travel agents, to give to their clients. Take a peek here: https://www.catsa-acsta.gc.ca/en/travel-agent-resources If your TA (if you have one) doesn't give you an "official" CATSA bag, I've no idea where you'd get one.

 

The only regulated requirement is that the bag be resealable, made of clear plastic, and be no more than 1 Litre in capacity. It can be smaller, just no larger than 1 L, but only one bag per passenger, so you can't use two 1/2 litre bags instead of a single 1 litre bag. I've often used smaller Ziploc sandwich bags as I don't travel with much in the way of liquids, aerosols and gels.

[dawnvip]

Yep, I know those requierments well and that is why I was so surprised to get pulled aside and made to put my items into their ziplock. My clear, resealable, less than 1 L sized bag wasn't good enough. From the other comments above, it seems CATSA had a bit of a blitz going on re: bags last fall. One more irritation that is not worth arguing over with the CATSA employee, but adds time and frustration. 

 

I went so far as to write to CATSA and complain but never heard back from them. Probably because they know its a make work, show we are doing something, kinda action.

[martincath]

re: bags, I actually think it's not too unreasonable that a bag which looks about 1L is verified - using an official bag is probably quicker than attempting to measure the size of some other bag that might be 1.1L etc. My wife had to wait behind some idiot a fortnight ago who had brought an oversized plastic bag and when asked to transfer the items; he could only get 3/4ths of his liquid containers inside the official bag... and that without closing it! Then of course the actual bottle sizes were checked... and some were over 100ml so they had to get chucked, which did mean he finally had sufficiently few liquid containers to fit inside the official bag and close it!

 

Once I placed my 60ml pocket bottle of hand sanitizer (size printed right on the label) into the tray without any bag at all (it was the ONLY liquid I was carrying, so you'd have to be blind not to be aware that I was easily within both the liquid individual and total rules) - and CATSA handed me their official 1L bag and demanded I place it inside, which really seemed like a waste of a bag! Unless the official bags are somehow magically blast-proofed their only purpose is to verify volume of liquids, not to protect anything... 😉

[dawnvip]

1 hour ago, martincath said:

so you'd have to be blind not to be aware that I was easily within both the liquid individual and total rules) - and CATSA handed me their official 1L bag and demanded I place it inside, which really seemed like a waste of a bag

Exactly my point - CATSA aren't paid enough to think, so the ultimate determining factor of whether the new screening program will work is still CATSA screeners and whether they are properly trained

[Fouremco]

15 minutes ago, martincath said:

Once I placed my 60ml pocket bottle of hand sanitizer (size printed right on the label) into the tray without any bag at all (it was the ONLY liquid I was carrying, so you'd have to be blind not to be aware that I was easily within both the liquid individual and total rules) - and CATSA handed me their official 1L bag and demanded I place it inside, which really seemed like a waste of a bag! Unless the official bags are somehow magically blast-proofed their only purpose is to verify volume of liquids, not to protect anything... 😉

Maybe not blast-proof, but probably leak-proof. Besides, CATSA employees are trained to go by the book, not use their judgement. The rules say that you have to place your single 60ml bottle of sanitizer in a bag, so end of story, in it goes!