Day: November 20, 2025

• The TSA proposed an $18 fee for travelers without acceptable ID at airport security checkpoints.
• The fee aims to fund biometric kiosks to streamline identity verification and reduce delays.
• It’s not a guarantee flyers clear security, and the $18 is non-refundable.

The Transportation Security Administration has taken a page from the budget airline playbook.

The agency filed a new proposal on Thursday that would charge travelers $18 at security checkpoints if they show up without a REAL ID or another acceptable government-issued ID, such as a passport or permanent resident card.

The fee covers the cost of creating and maintaining the new program and would essentially be required for an agent to access a biometric kiosk system designed to verify a traveler’s identity more quickly than the current manual process.

The fee is optional, but flyers without acceptable ID risk not being allowed on their flight if they don’t pay up.

It’s unclear when the rule to spur more REAL ID adoption could go into effect. The filing said it’ll begin when the agency opens registrations for the program on its website.

Under the proposal, the $18 would be valid for 10 days, meaning travelers without compliant ID documents wouldn’t necessarily pay the fee every single trip within that window.

The TSA said the new technology would be less time and resource-intensive than the current process when a flyer lacks these IDs, which involves providing personal information or answering detailed questions to match flyers to government databases. They also face extra screening of their carry-ons and persons.

But it added that the kiosks would just be an alternative attempt to verify a flyer’s identity — it’s not a guarantee. Those who can’t clear airport security through any means would not be refunded the $18. And they may still be subject to additional screening.

The TSA said the program would require spending on data infrastructure, software development, program management, and compliance. It added that it may impose a limit on how many times an individual could use the kiosk.

It’s unclear if TSA agents would be the ones to collect the fee when a flyer opts into the program. The TSA did not immediately respond to a question about where the fee will be paid and what payment types it will accept.

The fee-based system would be separate from the TSA’s existing use of facial recognition technology, which is already deployed voluntarily at dozens of airports nationwide — including major hubs like New York-JFK, Boston Logan, Denver, and Atlanta.

“This notice serves as a next step in the process in REAL ID compliance, which was signed into law more than 20 years ago,” a TSA spokesperson told Business Insider. Congress passed the REAL ID Act of 2005 in response to the 9/11 attacks, but it just rolled out in 2025.

They added that additional guidance would come in the “coming days” and that the rate of ID compliance is around 94%; a REAL ID card shows a star inside a circle in its upper right corner.

In May, the TSA began requiring travelers to present a REAL ID or another government-approved identification to pass through airport security checkpoints.

• Jeff Perera became a stay-at-home dad after he lost his job in retail.
• He and his wife had been searching Florida for a true New York-style bagel — until he started to make them himself.
• They sold their house, raised $28,000 on Kickstarter, and opened a bagel shop

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Jeff Perera, 48, the cofounder of Jeff’s Bagel Run. It has been edited for length and clarity.

I met my wife while working at Target, marking the beginning of what became a decadeslong career in retail. Over the years, I moved into leadership roles at several major brands before eventually joining a senior living company in a senior role.

Then, in August 2019, I got a call that changed everything: I was being let go. At the time, my wife, Danielle — who’d also built a successful career — was home full-time with our four kids.

At first, settling into the role of stay-at-home dad wasn’t natural — not because of the dad part, but because I was often the only dad at the park or play group.

Still, it gave me a rare chance to slow down. Danielle, who had decided to return to corporate work around that time, helped me realize I’d never really taken a step back to ask what I wanted next.

My identity had been closely tied to my job for years. I had no idea that space would make room for a question that would change everything: “Jeff, can you make me a bagel?”

When you can’t find the best bagel

Some people go on coffee runs. Others go on Target runs or beer runs. For Danielle and me, it was always a weekly bagel run. But living in Central Florida — a true bagel desert — meant driving 45 minutes to find a decent New York-style bagel.

So when my wife popped the question, given my newfound free time, I decided to try making her the perfect bagel.

Danielle has vivid childhood memories of bagels, riding in her mom’s station wagon on Long Island, eating one fresh from the bag. The best foods, of course, can transport us back to moments we just want to taste one more time.

The problem was, I’d never baked anything in my life. I had zero culinary training. I just looked up the first recipe I could find and got to work. Those first bagels were terrible — dense, misshapen, and far from New York standards. But that only inspired me to try again.

Every day, Danielle would come home from work to a new batch waiting for her to critique.

Then the pandemic hit, and my family was locked down with a mad bagel scientist. I’d make up to six dozen bagels a day. Bowls of dough covered the counters, each marked with recipe notes. My kids helped knead and mix, turning the kitchen into a full-on test lab.

Danielle would taste and review each one — the chewiness, the salt, the crust. Eventually, she joked that her work clothes might stop fitting if I didn’t stop baking. So, we started giving them away.

Getting it right

The look on my wife’s face when I finally nailed the perfect bagel was unforgettable. We looked at each other and asked: Could we actually sell these?

I made a simple flyer, posted on Instagram, and sold a few dozen. One of our early customers was a local journalist who wrote about us, and suddenly we had more orders than we could handle.

Our kitchen exploded into a full-scale operation. We had five refrigerators stretching into the garage, extension cords running everywhere, and breakers popping constantly. We upgraded our confection ovens.

In the third week of the pandemic, we started posting our bagel menu. Our bagels were selling out in seconds. During one stretch, we baked for 27 days straight. I delivered bagels across town, spreading a little joy during lockdown.

Scaling up

In 2020, we did our first in-person market. People lined up for a block to buy bagels. The next year, a downpour hit mid-market, and every other vendor packed up. But our line stayed. We threw tarps over the bagels, and people showed up soaked to buy half a dozen. That’s when we knew we had something real.

We sold our house and launched a Kickstarter campaign with a $10,000 goal. We raised over $22,000 from 276 backers, enough to buy equipment and take the next step. Danielle quit her job, and together we opened our first store in Ocoee, Florida, in 2021.

Today, Jeff’s Bagel Run — named after our weekly drives to find the best bagels — is a growing franchise with more than 100 stores in six states, and counting.

Peace, love, and bagels

Starting a business with your spouse can be tough. We make it work by having short memories; what happens at work stays at work.

Our corporate leadership training kicks in when we need to manage challenges or each other, but at the end of the day, we always choose “us” over the business.

Building something from scratch taught me a lot about trust, not just in my partner but in myself. In my corporate days, I always had a mentor or a boss to call for advice. Now, it’s just us.