TSA lines are chaos—and this $209 airport hack is exploding right now

A clear winner is emerging from the chaos at airports this month: Clear Secure. Gone are the days when a representative from the biometric firm might approach airport passengers to cajole them into signing up for a $209 membership to Clear. Amid staffing shortages with the Transportation Security Administration caused by the nearly six-week long shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security, travelers desperate for a shorter journey through security lines are now rushing to download the Clear app. Through Wednesday, downloads of the Clear app across both Apple’s App Store and Google Play have totaled approximately 319,000 in March, a 228% increase from the comparable period in 2025, according to figures from the analytics firm Appfigures Intelligence. Whereas at the start of the month, daily downloads of the app totaled less than 5,000, a daily threshold of 24,00 has become the new norm as the situation at airports has deteriorated more recently. On Monday alone, there were more than