As most here know HNL is a shoe carnival airport.
The FSD has now come up with a "new rule." Today when passing through security, I showed my boarding pass to the usual disinterested airport employee and was admitted into the lane area.
After passing through the WTMD (but before collecting my items from the x-ray belt, the TSA agent actually blocked my path and asked for my boarding pass and ID. Then he initialled the boarding pass! Huh? This one is new. I asked what it was for and his response was that "some" (read: SSSS) had gotten through, so now they have to initial each boarding pass. Okie dokie.
I collect my belongings and am blocked from leaving the area this time by a different TSA agent (about 15 feet beyond the first one) and he asks to see my boarding pass again. His job is to check to see if the agent 15 feet behind me has actually initialled my boarding pass. I asked him when this all started. He claimed it was two months ago. When I told him I was here two weeks ago and they didn't do it then. He said that I must have been in the other lane. I told him that I was in this very same lane his response was, "Well somebody didn't do what they were supposed to then."
According to the Hawaii Department of Transportation, the Honolulu Airport handled 18,690,888 passengers in 2003. 2004 figures are unavailable.
The additional time this takes, not to mention the waste of ink and writer's cramp involved, is just insane.
Oh and a word of warning to people who have Eclipse mints in their carry on luggage, these brilliant people thought it was butane! My guess is that they would also think Altoids or any mint in a tin "fit the profile"
