top987

I just flew from PIT with my pistol in checked luggage. I haven't done this in several months and was surprised when the TA asked me to open my suitcase right there in front of all of the other pas and show her the weapon. I was used to doing this in semi-private confines of the TSA area. I thought it was a fluke, but then it happened again on the return trip at RSW. Does anyone know when this policy changed? This was mildly surprising for me, but I can tell you fellow pas in line around me were VERY suprised. And the woman TA in PIT didn't even know how to check if it was loaded and never asked me to prove it was not. At least the TA in RSW asked me to cycle the action and show him the empty chamber. I much preferred the old way when I could have a TSA agent examine my luggage in front of me and secure the lock in front of me before it disappeared into the black hole. At least in PIT I got to follow it over to TSA and warn them and ask them to do it all in front of me. That option does not exist in RSW.

bbc1969

Most airlines do use the "discrete back room" check. I also believe (someone else may be able to confirm) that regardless of screeners "checking" during that process, most airlines want their employees who are processing the paperwork or checkin to go thru these motions as well.

ralfp

If you do the check in front of other passengers they know which bag to steal for a free handgun on arrival. Mildly scary. Is there anything done to prevent this?

Bart

Deleted

hockeyguy

IME, it's not too hard to pick out many of the heavy-duty gun cases anyways. They also are usuaully the only bags with heavy-duty locks on them, since TSA requires most bags to be unlocked for potential searches. Most regular luggage has flimsy plastic locks at best.

On a recent flight, it was easy to spot several checked weapons, the big heavy plastic cases with 3" locks on them. Turns out it was a bunch of Air Force guys (in uniform) who picked them up at baggage claim.

Seems like the airlines sholud treat any locked bags like that as "special handling", i.e. not put them on the belt and confirm ID before releasing them to the pax.

ralfp

I was thinking about handguns. Do people check handgun cases without putting them in a bigger bag?

goaliemn

Mine is always inside a small case inside my bigger suitcase.

eastwest

If you declare a firearm at Alaska Airlines, it will be taken to the Baggage Customer Service counter and you will have to show ID and pick it up there. It won't be put on the "bag belt."

copwriter

I've found that the gun-checking procedure varies with the ticket agent. A DL agent in PSC went ballistic and tried to find any reason she could not to let the gun on the plane (in the appropriate hardshell case, locked, unloaded, and the case inside another locked and checked bag). Then, not long ago, I came back through RNO with no fewer than seven guns (long story and already told here). The TA (again, DL) took my word that they were all unloaded, gave me a red tag to sign and place in each case, and sent me on to TSA.

As with the TSA, there doesn't seem to be a lot of consistency./

SpaceCoastBill

How do they know what bags have guns in them? The bags are not permitted to be marked externally as containing a firearm....

hockeyguy

The airline can certainly have a record in their system and flag it when the bag tag is scanned coming off the plane.

SpaceCoastBill

How do you figure this is happening?

I sign a little tag, put it in the bag, lock it and put the airline destination tag that the agent gives me onto my bag, and walk my bag to TSA.

If I check my bags with my familys bags (so now Im checking 6 or 7 bags) there is no way for them to know which one of those contains a gun.

I do this all the time, and there is absolutely no way for them to tell which one has the gun, which is the intent of the federal law. The law was designed to HIDE any indication of guns in bags. The old way of doing thing included an external tag so the baggage handlers knew that there was a firearm in the bag. Guess what... the bags disappeared or the guns were removed from bags. This is what led to the change in the law.

Ive flown several airlines out of many airports and never once were they able to tell what bag I checked had the firearm.

When did they start scanning every bag as it came off the plane? From my observations, they get offloaded, dumped on a cart in a huge pile with nobidy scanning the tags, then put right on the baggage carousel for passengers to retrieve.....

hockeyguy

Given your description, I'm not sure how they could do it. I assumed they recorded the bag claim number of the gun luggage in their system, but if they don't, your guess is as good as mine.
I don't know for a fact that they scan every bag, but my recent experience (mostly on UA) leads me to believe that they do. Any time a bag of mine has been delayed, the airline has been able to give me the exact time & place that it was last scanned, which is frequently at my connection airport. They could be scanning it at some intermediate point, but it would seem to make sense to have a record of each airport where the bag arrived, either at the plane or as the bags are being put onto the conveyer belt. Since a lot of the baggage handling is usually out of sight, I don't know whether they're actually doing it or not.

goaliemn

Airlines are no longer permitted to record any information about what luggage has what. IF alaska is doing it, they may be violating the rules..

The tag you put inside your bag shows up in an Xray as a particular shape, so the TSA knows its been declared. Thats the only way the airline/TSA should know you have a gun in your bag.

hockeyguy

What's the rationale behind this? Is it to prevent some sort of conspiracy between airline workers to single out individual bags, e.g. for theft, smuggling, etc.?

Back to the original question of whether someone who saw your gun at checkin could simply swipe your bag at bag claim -- it sounds like they could. However, that wouldn't be an airport security issue, just a issue of luggage theft, since the gun would be reclaimed outside the secure area. I would think that a thief looking for valuables could probably do just as well grabbing a large checked bag from overseas that's likely to contain some valuables (camcorders, etc.), and that might be less risky than stealing from a gun owner!

(Of course, you could argue that the gun owner would be without his weapon(s), but what about his buddy who's meeting him at the airport? )