Originally Posted by chaneytexas
...Once, I asked a gate agent who replied to me with some hostility: "we can't give that information out for security reasons..."
I've gone off on several FT rants about agents reciting "security" like a mantra when something has no possible security connection, but this is a situation where it actually might. Specifically, someone bent on mischief might want to confirm that the aircraft is the one where an accomplice left something behind on purpose - perhaps one of two components to a device, each of which is benign by itself but which, when combined, could be nasty. So, while there are (as noted in several previous posts) lots of ways to get this information, all of which are equally available to mischief-makers, they might be a bit suspect of someone who thinks it's important to find out.
(When I did some consulting for a railroad a few years back, they were pretty contemptuous of hobbyists who wanted to know locomotive numbers and that sort of thing. Security was not their concern, though their getting in the way was to a degree. The term for them was "FRNs," for "Freakin' [substitute a similar word for complete accuracy] Railroad Nuts." Bottom line is that railroad, or airline, employees may not sympathize with this compulsion.)