Personally I think it's just another useless act... If a person has an air carrier badge and an FAA issued commecial or ATP certificate and is in uniform, what difference does it make what line they go through? You still have to clear security.

Requiring gate passes for crewmembers does nothing to ensure or enhance "security." How about FFDO's with federal IDs but traveling through airports that their company doesn't serve? Will they need a gate pass too in order to access the secure area?

The only thing that will come of this is longer lines for passengers (and crew) as they wait to get gate passes. And once they do obtain the passes, I can bet you that at some fiefdoms, I mean airports... those crewmembers will have to wait in line with regular passengers to clear into the secure area as opposed to having access to crew lines.

Not that I really care since I don't travel by commercial air any more, but seems kind of ridiculous to me. Once again finding ways to focus attention and effort on crewmembers that have had extensive background checks. It would probably be easier to just compile a book of ID's for the screeners to reference should they come across one that they don't recognize.