The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) announced last week that it has added 4 more airlines to its roster of airlines participating in its TSA PreCheck program:
Added
Fiji Airways
The flag carrier of Fiji opened its doors in 1951. Part of the oneworld alliance (ever wonder why oneworld is written that way, with the boldface and all lowercase letters? We found out) as a “connect” partner, the airline has 14 planes in service:
- 3 Airbus A330-200s
- 1 Airbus A330-300
- 4 Airbus A350-900s
- 1 Boeing 737-800
- 5 Boeing 737 MAX 8s
Fiji Airways offers flights to Australia, Canada, India, Fiji (domestic), Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, Hong Kong, the United Kingdom and the United States.
Lynx Air
Lynx Air is a privately owned Canadian ultra-low-cost carrier based in Calgary, Alberta. It originally (in 2006) operated as New Air & Tours, but changed its name to Enerjet in 2008. It was again rebranded, this time as Lynx Air, in November 2021.
Lynx Air currently has 9 Boeing 737 MAX 8 planes in service. Its presence is through the major airports of Canada, but also flies to Mexico (Cancun) and the United States (Fort Myers, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Orlando, Phoenix and Tampa).
Norse Atlantic Airways
Norse Atlantic Airways is a Norwegian low-cost, long-haul airline headquartered in Arendal, Norway. Founded in February 2021, the airline operates a fleet of ten Boeing 787-9 planes.
Norse Atlantic Airways currently flies to:
- Barbados (seasonally)
- France
- Germany
- Italy (seasonally)
- Jamaica (seasonally)
- Norway (base)
- Thailand (seasonal)
- United Kingdom
- United States (both seasonal and continual locations)
Plans are to expand to Asia eventually.
Norse Atlantic Airways has virtual interlining agreements with east Jet, Norwegian Air Shuttle, Spirit Airlines and Vueling.
STARLUX Airlines
STARLUX Airlines is a Taiwanese international airline company headquartered in Taipei, Taiwan. Its first flight occurred in January, 2020.
STARLUX Airlines operates a fleet of 21 planes (13 Airbus A321neo, 4 AirbusA330-900s and 4 Airbus A350-900s) and flies to Guam, Japan, Macau, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, The United States and Vietnam.
Dropped
Sometimes the wheels of progress work slowly. Very, very slowly. TSA is always happy to mention when new airlines are added to its PreCheck roster; they even write press releases about the occasions.
However when an airline is dropped from the PreCheck program, it’s usually kept something of a secret. There’s no announcement or press release; the airline’s name has just been quietly removed from the TSA’s list.
Or, apparently, not.
See, we at Your Mileage May Vary not only scrounge for press releases from the TSA but also maintain our own copy of their list of airlines participating in PreCheck in spreadsheet form. Then, on a monthly basis, we compare their list to ours. The two lists have been the same since the last additions to their last, back on September 1, 2023. But now, with the addition of these 4 new airlines, the numbers still weren’t adding up. So I went through the list, one by one.
And then I caught it. Elite Airways was gone.
The thing is, Elite Airways, a US-based airline that offered charter and scheduled passenger flights, ceased operations in July 2022.
Did you catch that? Over a year and a half ago. And the TSA just removed them from their list in December 2023.
Finally (apparently).
So, despite TSA’s latest press release, they don’t have 94 domestic and international carriers participating in the TSA PreCheck program. They only have 93.
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This post first appeared on Your Mileage May Vary
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