Travelers who paid $200 a year to cut in airport security lines now have to queue up with everyone else, as Clear, the leading Registered Traveler program, went out of business on Monday night.

Clear announced it closing on its web page, saying "Clear’s parent company, Verified Identity Pass, Inc. has been unable to negotiate an agreement with its senior creditor to continue operations."

The website offered no guidance for the thousands of Clear members, and a spokeswoman did not immediately reply to a request for comment. Likely, Clear card holders will need to get in line with Clear's creditors if they want to see any refund of their membership fees.

Clear, formerly known as Verified Identity Pass, was founded by Steven Brill as a reaction to the notoriously slow security lines at the nation's airports after the 9/11 hijackings. For about $200 a year and a perfunctory security check, travelers would get a Clear card that let them jump to the front of the line at airports around the country, including Denver, Dulles Washington D.C., Indianapolis, Little Rock, New York LaGuardia, New York JFK, Newark, Oakland, Orlando, Reagan Washington D.C., Salt Lake City, San Jose, San Francisco and Westchester Airports.

In 2006, the TSA and airports set up a generalized system called Registered Traveler to make the program competitive, but Brill's Clear, which started at one airport in Florida, remained the market leader.

But as the TSA got better at keeping lines moving in the last few years, Clear's benefits became less clear. Clear continued to ink deals with the nation's largest airports and even partnering with football teams to get fans in the door faster, but evidently those strategies did not fare well in a down economy.

Even Brill, a former journalist who started Brill's Content and then CourtTV, seems to be bored with Clear. He stepped down as CEO in March to pursue endeavors in "public service and journalism," and, on the very day that Clear closed down, his spokeswoman sent out an invite to Wired.com for a press event for his newest venture, Journalism Online — a way to put up paywalls around online media content.

But if Brill can't get enough corporate travelers to pay for airport convenience, it's not clear how he thinks he'll get enough people to pony up online news subscriptions to save online journalism.

via Clear Lanes Are No Longer Available

Photo: Flickr/Rusty Brick

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