Frustrating Secondary Gate Screening at LHR
 

Flew LHR-JFK on DL yesterday, did the normal pre-checkin security interview, got my BP from the VS agent, and went to the VS Clubhouse - nothing out of the norm.

When the GA scanned my BP, he directed me over to the secondary screening area. I was pretty surprised, since my BP didn't have SSSS on it, so I asked the contract security woman doing the screening why I was being pulled aside, given that my BP didn't have have the SSSS indication.

She said "Oh, well your boarding pass says TSA on it," and pointed to TSA Precheck printed on the BP. I was like, "Wait, what?" She explained, "Since it says TSA then you get the additional screening."

I (very politely; the woman was very nice and was just doing her job, and wasn't trying to be malevolent) pointed out that TSA Precheck is just an indicator for (ironically) faster screening in the US, and doesn't mean anything at foreign airports. She basically shrugged her shoulders and kept going with the search. Not the end of the world, but I certainly would have appreciated not having my bag's contents spread out all over the table and having to repack it.

I wanted to try and get the DL Red Coat's attention to let her know that the contract security team was a bit confused, but she was tied up with boarding and I didn't get a chance to talk to her. I sent in a note to DL to give them a heads up (and said I don't want compensation or anything) so that it's hopefully something they can let the LHR station manager know about.

On the positive side, there was a nice, handwritten thank you note from the LHR Red Coat in my seatback pocket when I boarded. :)

Anyone ever run into this before? Definitely seemed like wires got crossed somewhere when the contract security agents were being trained...

Huh. That's weird. I have precheck and have not had this problem at London before, although sometimes it seems they search everyone's bags on a flight.

Me neither and I fly to London many times a year. London has many unique security protocols that are not always consistent. Could be you were just selected for random screening and rather than telling you she didn't know why she just made something up.

^

Anyone can be randomly screened at gate at LHR, nothing to do with SSSS, she likely just gave you that line to shut you up

Oh, interesting, fair enough. Hadn't run into that previously at LHR except for when I had SSSS on my BP.

If it makes you feel any better, I got subjected to "random" nude-o-scope and gate rape at the TSA in DCA Monday afternoon. The TSA used a male gropist who really enjoys his work.

I refuse and simply ask for the alternative instead of the scanner. Note they nude-o-scope i dont believe is used in the US anymore. Instead its just a scan that detect annamolies. Alternative should be walking through the WTMD and having hands tested for explosives. However have had the one or two agents that insist they do a full body pat down even when not needed, even when other agents said it wasn't necessary.

AFAIK all three US legacy airlines (DL/UA/AA) use contract people to do secondary screenings at the gate at LHR. These security screenings seem random and not related to whether one has TSA pre-check or not. I usually fly AA and I have been selected for these secondary screenings a few times, although I have had TSA pre-check via Global Entry for a long time. It is a pain to go through these screenings, but then we live in a very different era from a generation ago.

I got the pre-boarding secondary screening at CDG earlier this month. The family didn't. It was a bit silly as we shuffled bags to make screening simpler and the two of them (wife, toddler) walked on.

Yeah, I certainly get that times have changed. I get the random secondary screening bit, so if she had just said that, I wouldn't have given it much thought...it was the reference to TSA Precheck as the reason that really threw me off.

Anyway, appreciate everyone's input - I don't mean to make a mountain out of a molehill.

Passengers on any international flight headed for the US may be subjected to secondary gate screening. Applies to all airlines, foreign and US based. In some cases, some passengers are randomly selected while in other cases all passengers are screened.

I flew thru Heathrow yesterday. As always I did olci. When I got to the gate the agent said because I did olci I had to go for secondary screening. Not normally the case but whatever. Of course there wasn't actually a person at the table to perform secondary screening. After about five minutes I was let into the gate area and told to wait for a screener. I sat down in the gate area started working and pretty much forgot all about screening. A good ten minutes later a red coat agent came over and asked for my passport. I handed her my passport and about three minutes later she came back and gave me a paper boarding card. I asked her what it was all about and was told that there were a ton of new hires for the summer - keep in mind that many of the people at the gate are security employees not virgin/delta employees , the computer was giving out odd codes when scanning boarding cards and I was flagged for passport review not secondary screening. I really think this is more about the London equivillant of tsa where they have been increasing staff and not all are totally familiar with why a boarding card is beeping s not really a delta issue

The MMW (clear) machines are still very much in use, and the physical detection and imaging is still very much the same. All that has changed is that the human in the room viewing the images has been replaced by software to parse the images, but the images are still in the machine for some unknowable period of time (since it's not like the vendor has open sourced the product).

You can of course continue to opt out in the US. (I forget what the UK status is... for a while it was if you refuse you don't fly, but that might have been overturned.)

Getting SSSS and being a Global Entry member is even more frustrating. First time it happened to me last week and was at LGW on a VS flight. Has never happened before when I fly out of Schengen airports