ATLANTA — Entrepreneur Steven Brill, the man who brought you Court TV, opened the first paid, high-speed security lane at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport this week.
About 11,000 people in metro Atlanta have already signed up for Brill's Clear program that promises — for an annual fee — to speed fliers through airport security in five minutes.
Clear lanes operate in 20 airports. The company has about 200,000 customers nationwide. He hopes to open a second Clear lane at the Atlanta airport in the near future.
Brill, who's no longer involved with Court TV and spends most of his time promoting Clear, recently spoke with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution about his New York-based company.
Q: Clear costs customers $128 a year now. Will that price increase?
A: "It's going up very shortly. We're offering discounts to our current members. But the retail price is going up to $199 in about a month. The current customers will have a chance to renew for something near the current price almost forever, about $150. . . We're always going to charge less to people renewing their subscriptions than to people buying new ones."
Q: In how many airports will Clear be operating, say, within three years?
A: Probably 40 or 45, just in the U.S.
Q: How many Atlanta customers do you anticipate within five years?
A: Over 100,000.
Q: Who is the average Clear customer?
A: A road warrior with an annual income of $65,000 to $80,000. It's not a rich person. It's a working person who's stuck in a lot of airports on a lot of Monday mornings.
Q: Who's your target customer?
A: Frequent travelers, whether they are frequent business travelers or frequent vacation travelers.
Q: Even with Clear, people still have to take off their coats and shoes when going through security. Will that change?
A: We're making progress with that equipment (machines that allow people to stay fully clothed). I think it will happen pretty soon.
Q: Is your company making a profit?
A: We're not making a profit in the airports where we have just started. We are in airports like Orlando where we have been for a while. We're making a profit in Denver and close to a profit in San Francisco. It's takes six months to a year to make a profit.
Q: Any plans to take the company public?
A: Not now. I've never taken any of my companies public, so I doubt it.
Jim Tharpe writes for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. E-mail: jtharpe AT ajc.com