i saw something interesting on my flight back from chicago last night. the NW agent at MDW didn't call the "random" customers by name, he only called them by seat number.

IE: "would 16D, 12B, and 5F please report to the podium"

i noticed that NOBODY got up and went for the rubber glove treatment. so the agent called the seats again, in the same way. one person went to the table.

i had gotten my EUA and boarded when FC was called. the elites had not been called, but 5F had pushed his way into line anyway, and was NOT the one who had gone for the secondary inspection. was standing right behind him, and it was easy to see his BP.

the agent pulling BPs was the same one who had made the announcements for the "random" passengers. not only did he not send the coach seat back while FC was boarding, he didn't recognize the seat as one called for the secondary inspection.

so my question is this: have you ignored being called at the gate? doesn't look to me like being called creates a flag of any kind...



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I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the rights of the people by the gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.

James Madison, 4th US president (1751-1836)

Ah, another consistently inconsistent security-screening process which conveys to the world our degree of commitment to a unified and cohesive front against terrorism, crime, and simply bad behavior in the skies.

Some airlines seem to be printing some indication on the boarding pass that you've been selected - then the gate agt just has to look for the indicator, not a list of seat numbers.

Others (I've seen Delta do this) have the gate agt look you in the face and determine at the time of boarding if your are male traveling alone or non-native US - er - I mean if you are randomly selected.

But if there's no indication on the pass and they're just calling seat numbers, well, I, too, wondered if you could skip the process, but I'm probably too timid to test it.

Has anyone else noticed this?

In the weeks following 9/11 I was "randomly" picked for about 5 flights in a row... sometimes the checked baggage and then ANOTHER carry-on inspection at the gate... they also did the "swab test" where they rub a piece of felt all over your bags and then run it thru the analyzer...

since then, not a thing... I flew ~16k miles in Dec and was never selected... with one exception I am bascially flying on one carrier...

so, what do the gate agents do with those little printouts when they are done? do they throw them in the garbage? or did I "prove myself" and now I have some kind of "he's OK" tag in my profile???

okay, maybe this was a further call of people to be searched. NW does put an indicator on the BP. on the flights that i've been "pre-selected" my bording pass reads as follows:

s-duxfan/mr
COXX000000
platinum elite

if i haven't been "pre-selected" the "s-" isnt't there. this was a further call, apparently.

I flew out of ATL on CO Dec 31. I was selected to have my bags inspected at check-in and also was selected at the gate for the rubber glove treatment. Even though I was flying with my wife and baby!
When we arrived at the gate the agent looked at our BP's and said "Oh, I've been waiting for you". It seemed like he had a list of passengers that he was supposed to send for inspection. (I don't know if he had previously made an announcement asking that we present ourselves to the gate agent because we arrived at the gate pretty late, but I don't think he did.)

did it have a little disclaimer like:

** if this was a WorldPerks Elite number we could make this all go away

LOL.... maybe thats it. i thought i read on here that NW would not match status for CO Elites? 75% of my flying last year was on NW. Since CO seems to think of CLE as the RJ center of the universe, and has no service CLE-PDX, maybe i should jump ship?

[This message has been edited by duxfan (edited 01-04-2002).]

Completely off topic but
ETOPS=engines turn or passengers swim

In London they had a list at check in with seven or eight names on it, they took your boarding card, ran it down the list, then let you into the gate waiting area. If you were on the list, off to secondary screening.

I ignored it. Figured in theory I might have walked up five minutes after they made the announcement. BP did have the "S" on it. Walked right on the plane. No one is reconciling the list.

And as I posted in another thread, if I were the type to do something untoward, I'd bolt as soon as the BP popped out with the dreaded S.

I gotta tell you, I just got done with security at MSY and it was ridiculous. At BWI and IAD, I'm used to going through the metal detectors, hearing nothing go off, and then getting my carry ons and heading to the gate. No fuss, no muss.

At MSY, not only did they make me go through the detector, but they wanded me anyway. And then I got patted down top to bottom. After that, I had to open up my camera bag and my carryon because they saw the lens in the camera bag and thought it was something not allowed. They thought my electric shaver was a flashlight, too.

Know what else was ridiculous? There was an entire group of soldiers travelling on orders, with government tickets, military IDs, and they were in uniform. And they made these guys go through the same thing. One of the soldiers said he should have just ordered the guardsmen to allow them through since he was a captain or something.

He did get a salute from the guardsmen, though.

Can't ignore it on AA as the boarding pass scanner at the gate nails you every time.

They should follow the random inspection just as well. After all, how do you know if they are really military, right?

I don't know why they don't just offer FF miles for the extra gate-based search stuff.

Come on, who would roll their eyes or complain about some extra screening if they're getting 1000 miles for the inconvenience?