Being 'Grilled' at BRU during transfer
 

I was traveling home to EWR from CDG via BRU. My Brussels Air flight from Paris was late, making for a very tight connection to my UA flight from gate A60 to B11. We were told they would hold the flight for us and had given our names to the B11 gate agents. I made the mad dash through the terminals, checkpoints etc and arrived to find my flight still boarding (big relief)... but I was then grilled for over 5 minutes by Security about why I was transferring, exactly what I did in Paris, which hotel, what was around my hotel, where did I work in the US, who owned my company?? On and on. Now I'm a pretty average middle aged woman, no accent or anything that would separate me from others. Not sure if the is just an odd event or the norm in BRU. I can't say that I saw others being grilled, but it may have been my slightly rushed appearance -- she did say they were expecting me, due to the delay, but still was very through in her questioning. ( I usually just get the.. did you pack your own bags, where have the been etc)

If the above occurred at the gate, I don't think you were grilled by security but rather the UA passport checker contractor, ICS. Did the interrogator put a green tag on the back of your passport?

Yes, but as I mentioned I'm generally just asked about the packing of my bags, and that question never came up, but where is my company hq? I told her this was not a business trip.

The tight connection is irrelevant.

Could have been anything and not remotely worth worrying about. DHS requires that a percentage of the passengers receive a secondary screening and you were either preselected at random or for a reason. If this continues on your next few overseas departures for the US, there is a reason. Otherwise, you were randomly flagged. Once flagged, the questioning would have to be completed.

Nothing to be done about it and best to simply answer the questions, nothing more and nothing less.

That's fairly common. I was similarly questioned by American Airlines' security personnel (ICTS) near the check in counters at CDG this year and MAD last year. The questioning at LHR the prior two years was not quite as intrusive.

Similar thing happened to me at the gate in LIS connecting to a UA flight to EWR on two separate trips. I was connecting from RAI and had checked luggage. From what I could tell, they gave pax originating there a simple passport check. For connecting pax, we were questioned in more detail, especially about our luggage. They placed a little green circular sticker on my passport.

thought this was interesting in 2011 >
online checkin with carry on only, departing GVA, questioned at gate
checked in at airport desk, departing YVR, zero questions whatsoever

seems some single women (an ex-GF of mine) get questioned as well

Similar thing happened to me at MUC after I had run through the terminal to catch my flight. I was sweating, out of breath, and late, so naturally the ICTS person took her time looking at my passport and asking me several questions very slowly.

When you say that you don't speak with an "accent' is that French or Belgian?

I don't think that they really care.

Seriously, don't overthink these things. It's a significant % of pax bound for the US and there is absolutely nothing you can do to avoid being selected except perhaps avoiding travel to North Korea.

To respond to your question, neither -- as the accent is an American English one. And given an excuse behind these questions was that of frustrating the transport of inadmissibile persons, accents do matter at times. And given the excuse that identity matters when it comes to interdicting contraband WEIs, they are concerned about identity and often even with stories that conform or not with the prejudices of the "interrogators".

There are ways to minimize the odds of having to deal with these dog and pony show grillings for flights to the US: choose the correct non-US carriers and the odds of this kind of stuff hitting drops off greatly.

One of these American-hired characters at BRU was like "what's your emergency?" Like nothing, I just felt like going home today. All this because of the ticketing date.