O’Hare Airport joining pre-check screening program

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Updated: February 10, 2012 9:27AM

A new passenger-screening program to make check-in more convenient and quicker for pre-checked frequent fliers is being expanded to O’Hare Airport and other major U.S. airports.

By the end of march, some frequent fliers on Delta Air Lines and American Airlines will be able to move through faster airport security lines at O’Hare, Reagan Washington National, New York’s JFK and Salt Lake City, Utah.

There’s no cost to eligible passengers, who will no longer have to remove their shoes and belts before they board flights and will be able to leave their laptops in their cases.

In return for being able to move more quickly through security lines, passengers have to give the government personal information beforehand.

The federal Transportation Security Administration’s “pre-check” security screening program, which began last summer on a trial basis, is being expanded, in all, to 35 airports by the end of the year.

The program already is available to participating Delta and American passengers at seven airports: Atlanta, Dallas/Fort Worth, Detroit, Miami, Minneapolis, Las Vegas and Los Angeles.

Other airlines, including United, Continental and US Airways, are expected to join the program within months.

The program is expected to be operating in these airports by the end of 2012: Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport, Charlotte Douglas International Airport, Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport, Denver International Airport, Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport, Honolulu International Airport, New York’s LaGuardia Airport, Lambert-St. Louis International Airport, Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport, Puerto Rico’s Luis Munoz Marin International Airport, Orlando International Airport, Philadelphia International Airport, Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, Pittsburgh International Airport, Oregon’s Portland International Airport, San Francisco International Airport, Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, Florida’s Tampa International Airport and Alaska’s Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport.

The airports include the three used by hijackers to launch the terror attacks in September 2001: Dulles, Newark and Logan International.