FLO to buy Unisys' Registered Traveler

FLO Corp. has signed an agreement to acquire the Registered Traveler business of Unisys Corp. The value of the assets to be purchased is $8 million, said FLO spokesman Ken Mitchell.

Under the agreement, FLO of Chantilly, Va., will begin operating Unisys' Registered Traveler operations at the Reno, Nevada airport, Mitchell said. In addition, FLO has won a contract to operate Registered Traveler at the Huntsville, Ala., airport and recently put in bids for Registered Traveler programs to operate at Reagan National Airport and Dulles International airports in Virginia and Denver International Airport, he said.

Registered Traveler currently operates in several major airports. While some companies have entered into arrangements with airports to sell their Registered Traveler services, FLO is pursuing a strategy of signing up large corporations to participate in the program, Mitchell said. Selected employees of these corporations, once enrolled in the system, would be eligible to participate in Registered Traveler at any participating airport, he said.

Enrolled members of Registered Traveler must undergo a prescreening by the Transportation Security Administration and must register their fingerprint or iris biometric information. Once enrolled, they receive identification cards and are eligible to go through security processing at designated lanes at the participating airports.

To date, FLO has signed up clients for distribution of 150,000 membership cards and several thousand people have submitted their initial information for participation, Mitchell said.

FLO said it purchased the "rtGO" technology solution from Unisys and will make royalty payments to Unisys through 2015. Unisys also will serve as an information technology subcontractor to FLO.

FLO, which stands for Fast Lane Option, is part of the FLO Alliance partnership that consists of FLO Corp.; Microsoft Corp.; JPMorgan Chase, Johnson
Controls Inc., Smiths Detection Inc., The Paradies Shops, International
RAM and ID Technology Partners.