Originally Posted by
IAN-UK
US-bound flights routinely attract high levels of screening.
Clean or not, transfer passengers will have missed the security-based scrutiny terminal passengers go through. For this alone they might expect to be flagged for extra attention.
That's clear but the poster above indicates "
We passed by the Turkish Airlines transfer desk before security ,if that helps." meaning they were treated as an unclean arrival, and not led straight into the general departures hall.
Normally, an MXP arrival would be considered clean and would go straight to the departures hall (the walkway heading upwards if a jetway, the connections lane at the EU arrivals if a bus) before having the extra scrutiny at the US departure gates.
There were some earlier reports on here of clean EU arrivals with US connections being directed to transit security (in effect being identified and then treated as an unclean arrival) but I did not witness this on recent trips through IST.