Originally Posted by psychtobe
Mrs. Psychtobe was flying DL on a NW award ticket. Couldn't check in online so we suspected SSSS, and arrived early.
Despite some chaos at security (obviously inexperienced non-TSA staff directing traffic), she made it through on time and went to her gate. No SSSS.
As she attempts to board when her row is called, the DL agent informs her that she was supposed to have received Special Screening, and they can't let her on the plane until she returns to TSA security and her BP is cleared! To add insult to injury, they tell her she "better hurry!" Mrs. psychtobe hightails it back to security, where they search her bags, body, etc; then rushes back to DL gate in time to board the plane.
Questions:
1. If she was supposed to be SSSS'd and wasn't, what was the point of having her return to Security for the screening? By that point, if she had been a bad guy, whatever contraband she had been carrying would have long been disposed of, so why send her back?
2. Why wasn't a security breach called - if TSA feels SSSS is an important anti-terror mechanism, and someone who was supposed to have received it didn't, shouldn't they have closed the terminal and searched for contraband?
3. Would DL really have taken off without her? What recourse would she have had? Would DL have blamed her for "not leaving adequate time" for security?
4. Has anyone experienced this before?
If it happened at a large airport, screeners would have come out to the gate to oblige the SSSS screening. IT happens some at DEN and that is how we handle it. There are instances when a ticket counter issues a ticket and at the gate they come up on the computer as SSSS. Dont know why. She had to go through regular security and that it why no breach was called. Yes DL would have left without her.
Last edited by eyecue; Jul 29, 2005 at 9:37 pm