Remember walking someone all the way to their gate? Standing there while they boarded, then waving at a window you couldn’t actually see into? That disappeared for most of us in 2001, and it never came back. Until now, sort of.

TSA has launched Gateside by TSA PreCheck, which lets eligible PreCheck members past the security checkpoint without a boarding pass. No flight, no ticket, no fee. You request a pass a few days ahead, clear screening like any other passenger, and then the terminal is open to you: the gates, the restaurants, the shops on the far side of security.

Where it works right now

Thirteen airports at launch:

• Columbus, Ohio: John Glenn Columbus International (CMH)
• Dallas–Fort Worth, Texas: Dallas Fort Worth International (DFW)
• Detroit, Michigan: Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW)
• Indianapolis, Indiana: Indianapolis International (IND)
• Las Vegas, Nevada: Harry Reid International (LAS)
• Little Rock, Arkansas: Bill and Hillary Clinton National (LIT)
• Los Angeles, California: Los Angeles International (LAX)
• Mesa, Arizona: Phoenix–Mesa Gateway (AZA)
• Oklahoma City, Oklahoma: Will Rogers International (OKC)
• Omaha, Nebraska: Eppley Airfield (OMA)
• Salt Lake City, Utah: Salt Lake City International (SLC)
• San Diego, California: San Diego International (SAN)
• Wichita, Kansas: Wichita Dwight D. Eisenhower National (ICT)

TSA switched the program on across these airports in early September 2026, and describes it as an initial launch with a phased expansion to follow. Access can also be capped when an airport is busy, so treat it as a courtesy rather than something you can count on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving.

How to request a pass

You can’t decide this at the curb. The request goes in online, one to three days before the day you plan to visit.

Go to TSA.gov/gateside, sign in through login.gov, and enter the details exactly as they appear on your PreCheck record: name, date of birth, and Known Traveler Number. Pick the airport you’re visiting. That’s the whole application.

On the day itself, bring three things:

• Your Known Traveler Number, tied to an active TSA PreCheck membership.
• A REAL ID or another form of identification TSA accepts.
• Your phone, so you can pull up the Gateside dashboard and show your approval status at the checkpoint.

From there it’s an ordinary trip through security. You’ll use the PreCheck lanes and you’ll be screened the same way a departing passenger is. The pass gets you past the checkpoint; it doesn’t get you around it.

Children can come along. Add them to your request with the add visitor option, and show your portal status for the whole group when you reach the officer.

The part that actually matters

Dinner past security is a novelty. I’ll take it, but it isn’t why this program is worth knowing about.

The goodbye is why. Walking an elderly parent to the gate instead of handing them off to a wheelchair attendant at the curb and hoping it goes smoothly. Sitting with an adult child for the last twenty minutes before their first real trip alone. Standing at the gate when your grandchildren come off the plane, rather than at baggage claim forty minutes later.

Layovers, too. If someone you love is connecting through Salt Lake or Detroit with four hours to kill, a Gateside pass turns that into lunch together.

A small piece of the old airport

For roughly twenty-five years, everything past the checkpoint has belonged to ticketed passengers and people with specific authorization. Gateside doesn’t undo that, and it isn’t trying to. The screening still happens, the approval still has to clear days in advance, and TSA can still turn you away on a given day.

But it hands back something a lot of us had written off as permanently gone, and that’s not nothing.

One caution before you build plans around it: airport programs move. Participating locations change and requirements get revised, so check the current Gateside rules close to your date rather than trusting what was true in September.

And if the trip itself is the part you’d rather not think about — the flights, the hotel, the hundred small decisions that determine whether a week feels effortless or exhausting — that’s my job. Tell me where you want to go, and I’ll handle the rest.