kmersh

At the gate in MCO, four TSA employees setup an impromptu screening area and had the gate agent make an announcement and I am quoting here "passengers with paper boarding passes and ONLY paper boarding passes to have them out along with ID for inspection by the TSA".

She said that those with mobile boarding passes do not have to do anything and that the TSA was only screening those with paper boarding passes.

I did not effect me as I was using a mobile boarding pass, but for the life of me I could not understand why those with paper boarding passes were/are more of a risk than those with mobile boarding passes (at least in the TSA's eyes).

A few folks quickly obtained mobile boarding passes at the gate area, the older lady sitting next to me loudly asked her husband how to install the DELTA app so that she could obtain a mobile boarding pass as she did not want to deal with the TSA again.

pvn

Wait, what makes you think that these people were more of a risk in their eyes?

kmersh

Nothing, but generally the TSA sees everyone as a risk and in my mind that would extend to a gate search and specifically only checking paper boarding passes.

I think the entire exercise was a waste, but as my wife always tells me, nobody is asking me.

WillCAD

I doubt that TSA sees paper boarding pass users as more risky than mobile BP users - though if asked I have no doubt that they'd come up with some typical Newspeak double-talk garbage to justify it - I just think the TSOs used the distinction as an arbitrary way to weed out most of the experienced business travelers who are more likely to give pushback than the average leisure traveler who submits more meekly out of terrorphobia.

pvn

this is almost certainly correct, or very nearly so. Obviously if people had enough warning to download the app to avoid the additional search, the intention wasn't to actually find anything. This was 100% security theater.

Boggie Dog

Very little of what TSA is about risk mitigation. Culling those with paper boarding passes would allow them to see if the TSA document checker was making their secret mark on paper boarding passes, or perhaps seeing how many had been reprinted once past security. Bottom line if TSA can't conduct a proper screening at the primary checkpoint then what's the purpose of the security check in the first place.

guflyer

The one reason that I could see them only looking at paper boarding passes is that perhaps they wanted to find people with SSSS on their boarding pass. People with SSSS are generally unable to get mobile boarding passes.

However, even this seems flawed as there does not seem to be anything that prevented people with paper boarding passes from just pretending that they had mobile boarding passes to avoid being checked.

GUWonder

txrus

FriendlySkies

Boggie Dog

Not convinced that these gate screenings accomplish any real security objective other than proving that TSA's passenger screening is ineffective as long as airport workers remain unscreened.

chollie

I wonder if they ever 'random' flight crew at the gate?

A while back an FA got 'randomed'. Can't remember the airports, but it made the news because she ran off. Yes, ran away. Her rollaboard was filled with drugs. They did eventually catch up to her a few days later.

I didn't follow the case, so I don't know if they looked into whether or not this was her first run. If she hadn't been 'randomed', she would have boarded and flown with a suitcase full of hard drugs. If TSA were doing random gate checks, would they have checked her bag?

I seriously doubt it. I have never seen crew stopped during TSA gate checks, and generally first class boards unchallenged.

Boggie Dog

Usually the crew has already boarded the aircraft before a gate check commences.

I don't condone illegal drug use or trafficking but think the last thing TSA should be doing is getting involved in any law enforcement activities, during a gate check or any other time and place. It's not their job and we have plenty of other resources to engage in those activities.

chollie

That's not my point.

She could have had a gun in her bag. She could have had explosives. She happened to have drugs. She was caught by a 'random' checkpoint inspection. Ordinarily her bag never passes through an x-ray.

If ordinary travelers who have passed the checkpoint are still subject to 'random' gate checks, even those with Precheck, then shouldn't flight crew (at least the cabin crew) also be subjected to infrequent random checks?

Boggie Dog

I agree with you to a point but I do not agree that there should be gate checks. Every person entering the secure area of an airport should be screened, passenger and employee alike. Then there is no need for gate checks or random searches. There is zero security when a group of people are exempted from routine screening.