Originally Posted by
dgreen12
Flying back to SEA tomorrow morning for day two of the conference ---- I'll check out the last aspect tomorrow night on my way back --- to see how the PDA scans at the gate!
Did a second "same day" GEG/SEA/GEG run on Election Day, Tuesday.
Had a lousy experience on the TSA side in SEA with the electronic boarding pass --- but the AS at-the-gate experience was just fine.
Tuesday night went through Security at the D4 screening area --- the one by the stairs going down to the N gate train. (Monday night's experience was just down the hall at the Security with the Gold/GEG/PDX priority line).
The ID checker was clueless. She got ahold of a scanner (which I had to tell her to do) and scanned the electronic boarding pass. To the best of my knowledge, she never looked at my ID to see if the name matched.
Instead of stamping a photocopied piece of paper (as had happened the night before when I went through the priority line for the screening area a couple of hundred feet away), she handed me a green plastic card and told me to take it to the metal detector. She didn't have any paper to stamp, she said... they were out.
The green plastic card is apparently for when they can't read the electronic boarding pass with the scanner, and it tells you to go to get a paper boarding pass from the check in desk up front. (I found that out when I got a surprised look at the metal detector).
Went through the metal detector, they looked at the electronic boarding pass again (without the scanner) and my ID.
Then a supervisor came over, and said there "is no paper form" (even though I had received one the night before down the hall) and that they did it wrong the night before (just down the hall).
My impression of the TSA is that they didn't know (and don't know) what's going on with respect to electronic boarding passes.
On a more positive note, the gate agent (as we were boarding during the McCain concession speech) handled the electronic boarding pass just fine (even though it was his first). Took the PDA, scanned the barcode, handed it back to me and I boarded. He then answered a couple of folks' questions behind me in line, explaining the electronic boarding pass test, and that it was his first experience scanning it.
What I liked: Don't need to check in where there is a printer, which is especially good when running to the airport and there may be time constraints.
What I disliked: PDA is a bit bulkier --- TSA hassles.
Would I do it again? Maybe.... but paper is working just fine if I get to the airport early enough.