I flew out of SeaTac on June 20. I arrived at the south terminal (A Gates) on a rental car bus. I got off the bus and followed some other people up to a what appeared to be a security check on the 2nd floor. There was a line at the check and a woman at the head of the line checking boarding passes. She said I could not use that check point; I would have to use another one down stairs, and pointed to an escalator to the first floor.
When I got to the downstairs checkpoint, there was absolutely no line. I walked up to the desk, showed them my ID, then went to the conveyer belt and put on my bag to be X-rayed. I was through in seconds, then went up escalators to the gate level. When I got up to the gate level, I could see people waiting to get to the other checking area.
What's going on? Was the place I first tried to go into an express checkpoint, where it's supposed to be faster? But everybody uses it, so it's actually slower?