Oh, I thought of another one. This one was from October of 2001, and the historical perspective is relevant. I was leaving LHR on UA and when I got to the gate, where they again check your ticket and ID routinely, there was a guy refusing to give his ID to the person at the gate checkin. The UA (or maybe BAA) person was being completely polite, but insisting that she needed to see his documents. He said that he has shown them at the security line and wouldnt show them again. She politely insisted that she needed to see them. He asked for a supervisor from United and she summoned one who appeared pretty quickly and inquired as to what the problem was.
The guy then said he was being discriminated against because he was "a person of color" and being required to show his ID twice, and that the gate agent was rude (she had not been from what I saw). The supervisor explained that it was a requirement that the airline obtain confirmed identification from all passengers inbound to the United States and relay that information to US Customs and Immigration so that they would have a confirmed passenger list in advance of the arrival of the flight. He said in that case he would show his documents to the supervisor but not to the gate person because she had been rude to him. The supervisor said that it needed to be shown to the gate personnel doing the security checks so that they could process the information, not to her. The guy again says he wont show the gate check person. The supervisor asks to see his ticket and he gives it to her. She then asks if he has checked bags and he replies yes. She asks for the baggage check tags, which are stapled to his ticket envelope, and he hands them to her. She looks at them briefly, hands the ticket and the envelope with the tags to the gate check agent and says "pull his bags, he's off the flight" and turns around and walks away without saying another word.
Last edited by GadgetFreak; Jun 15, 2008 at 2:30 pm