If you were hoping to walk a family member all the way to their gate without a boarding pass of your own, check the airport list first. The TSA's Gateside by TSA PreCheck program launched as a pilot in September at 13 US airports, letting PreCheck members pass through security without a ticket to greet or say goodbye to travellers at the gate — a throwback to pre-9/11 airport norms.

Then things got confusing. A few weeks ago, the TSA's application portal quietly began offering gate passes at roughly 300 airports nationwide, though the agency never announced the expansion or updated its website. This week, that wider availability was rolled back: the portal now only lists the original 13 pilot airports, and a representative for Norfolk International Airport in Virginia told local station WAVY that the TSA put the program on hold indefinitely outside the pilot sites.

Why the about-face? Nobody outside the agency seems to know. The TSA didn't respond to The Points Guy's request for comment, and its Gateside site still claims the program "will roll out to more airports across the country in the coming months." Whether that timeline survives remains to be seen.

Where can you still use it? The 13 participating airports are Mesa Gateway (AZA) in Arizona, John Glenn Columbus International (CMH), Dallas Fort Worth (DFW), Detroit Metro (DTW), Wichita Eisenhower (ICT), Indianapolis (IND), Harry Reid in Las Vegas (LAS), Los Angeles (LAX), Bill and Hillary Clinton National in Little Rock (LIT), Will Rogers in Oklahoma City (OKC), Eppley Airfield in Omaha (OMA), San Diego (SAN) and Salt Lake City (SLC).

If your home airport isn't on that list, you may still have a workaround. A separate group of US airports runs its own gate pass schemes, though non-travellers have to use the regular security line rather than PreCheck lanes. Those include Albuquerque, Cleveland, Kansas City, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Seattle-Tacoma, Nashville, Palm Springs, San Antonio, Tulsa, John Wayne and Ontario in California, Lansing, Tri-Cities in Washington, San Francisco, Orlando, Shreveport and Tampa.

For travellers, the practical takeaway is simple: don't assume Gateside availability beyond the pilot airports for now. If you're meeting someone at DFW or seeing them off at San Diego, apply for a gate pass through the TSA's portal as usual. Anywhere else, check whether the airport runs its own program and be prepared for standard screening. And given how popular the idea proved when it launched — the pilot drew plenty of positive coverage — a fuller national rollout still seems likely, just not as quickly as that brief 300-airport window suggested. We'll flag it when the list grows again.

Credit: The Points Guy