Scribbles on Boarding Passes
 

What are the various types and what do they mean?

I know SSSS is bad. What do the rest mean? After scribbling something a TSO waved me purposefully towards the cancer machine lanes but I moseyed on over to a metal detector lane, and walked through unscathed.

AFAIK, aside from SSSS, none of them mean anything. In fact, more often than not, they've never even looked at again. It's not at all uncommon for screeners to wave you into a specific lane. I was pulled out of the WTMD priority lane at DEN and told by the screener that I had to go two lanes over to an open scanner based on "random selection" of passengers. I just told the lady that my belongings were on this line and in the X-ray, and I was not leaving them that far out of my sight and control. She shrugged and grabbed the guy behind me (the poor sap whose belongings weren't in the X-ray yet) instead.

I have watched this intently since I use my NEXUS card, and the process is one that interests me.

Many of the scribbles are simply checking off that the info on the boarding pass matches the same info on the ID.

The odd one is the one that I think may identify the TDC that did the check. It is nearly always the last one done as if to say, "I checked all this stuff and here are my scribbled initials."

That is just my guess.

As for the NEXUS, no challenges in months. It's getting a bit boring at the TDC. Good.

Theatrics. The scribbling is designed to make the viewer believe that the "T"DC has done something constructive toward keeping passengers safe.

Nothing more than a CYA that a paper BP was looked at by "someone"

We have a winner.

they're just little notes from the ID checker to the employee working the screening machines. Stuff like

• "where do you want to go for lunch",
• "I'm bored",
• "I hate my job",
• "look at this lady's hideous pantsuit",
• "what time is your break ?",
• "how did your interview with McDonalds go; can you recommend me if they hire you ? ",
• "my 'name game' compliance is high today - 72% - top that !" , etc..

Since they write nothing on my phone when I show my mobile BP, there's obviously no security related reason for the scribble.

^^

They are never looked at again.

I sometimes end up with two boarding passes, for instance when I print a receipt at the airport kiosk after printing my boarding pass at home. For amusement, I used to pocket the initialed boarding pass and use unmarked copy back when some airports required you to show the boarding pass when passing through the WTMD.

My guess is that putting a mark on each boarding pass is a method to make the document checker look at each boarding pass.

It's also easy enough to do that the TSA can score nearly 100% on an audit. A more difficult test, for instance verifying that the document checker matched names or looked at the destination airport, would fall short of 100%. And that would look bad in a GSA audit.

This subject is discussed a lot here.

As near as I can tell, it's just the TDC confirming he's done his job.... And while I do think it's meaningless, earlier this year there seemed to be a point made at certain airports for the paper BP itself to be checked later in the process and the passenger to be admonished if there weren't scribbles, with the assumption being that you must have sneaked into the line and bypassed the TDC.

(Why they can't just assign the checker to watch for line sneakers instead of harassing pax goes unanswered)

What this really shows is the uselessness of the TDC. Let's say I lose my BP after passing through security. I get a new one either at the club, at a CS center, or a kiosk. No one makes me go through security to get new scribbles, correct?

Just more TSA Security Theater, with a dash of government officiousness thrown in for good measure.

No, it's the "T"DC confirming that he/she/it has pretended to do a job.

BTW Next time I get my BP I am going to scribble on it in al the usual and unusual places before I hand it to the TDC and see what they say. If they say anything I will hand then a second clean BP and say try this one.

Or, if you use a mobile boarding pass, you're verified against a machine and there are no squiggles whatsoever. If the squiggles were at all important, there'd be a digital equivalent.

At IAH for while (maybe they still do), the TDC was handing little orange cards to mobile BP users to hand over to the redundant checker (this guy needs a nickname) when asked.