My wife and I are both NW SE and we just got back from a trip to Maui. We were flying from OGG to LAX on seperate Continental tickets and the OGG to HNL leg was on Hawaiian. When we were checking in at OGG we were apparently flagged and SSSS was put on our boarding passes. When we got to security we were told we would be subject to further security review, i.e. wand and pat downs as well as having all of our carry on bags inspected by TSA. I asked the TSA guy before the metal detector why where flagged and he said the airline flagged us. He said he wasn't sure why, but it could have been any number of reasons, including, as he put it, "because they thought you looked funny."

While we were waiting for our carry ons to be inspected I told my wife what the guy had said, that it might not be a random thing. Another TSA screener overheard me and said that of course it was random. When I told him what the first TSA guy had said, he didn't really have a response. Additionally, I pointed out that we were flying on seperate reservations, so the odds of both of us getting flagged randomly were pretty slim. He just repeated that it was random.

While it wasn't a huge inconvenience, I am still curious why we were flagged, especially because we got conflicting info from the TSA people. We fly a lot and this has never happended to us before. If I want to contact the airline, should I talk to Hawaiian or CO? Or should I just let sleeping dogs lie?

Anyone else have a similar experience?

For some reason, Hawaiian goes crazy about SSSSing anyone on one-way, through, open-jaw, or interline tickets. I had a 3 segment thru ticket last October and my friend and I were SSSSed at every single airport. They need to take a chill over there at HA with this nonsense.

Not sure why this is on the NW board, but anyway... I'm not sure what you have to gain by pursuing this further. It's unlikely that CO or HA would (or even could) tell you why you were flagged. Were your inter-island tickets one-way tix or purchased at the last minute? If so, that would be a sure reason for the dreaded SSS. Also, although the odds of both your wife and you being randomly selected are low they aren't zero. As for "looking funny" it sounds like the agent was just being glib. I wouldn't sweat it - it's not likely to happen again and if it does it's not the end of the world.

I agree 100% with the poster above - it was most likely a one-off thing that had to do with how you booked your flight.

That said, my friends that work for TSA say that it is *never* random unless it was a mistake in the first place because mistakes are relatively random.

peace,
~Ben~

You answered your question yourself even though you did not know it.

You can read the Security forum, or do a search for SSSS and you will read that even though the ticket was bought as a through ticket, if it is on two different airlines it will show up in each airlines system as a one-way ticket. One way tickets are SSSS about 99.99% of the time. The TSA basically says that one-way fliers need more scrutiny so the airlines have set up their computers to flag you if it shows up in that airlines computer as a one-way ticket.

The screeners at the check points CAN NOT tell you what the criteria is. It is supposed to keep the terrorists confused. If they knew what the criteria was they could get around it.

So, it was not random, and it was not a one-time thing. If you had the same flights tomorrow, or next week, or next year, you would get the SSSS unless the criteria change between now and then.

If you don't want to be SSSSed, than DO NOT pay Cash, DO NOT buy a ticket at the last minute, or DO NOT appear that you are flying one-way. Even with codeshare flights, if you fly your outbound all on NW metal and your return all on CO metal, it will still show as a one way in the NW and the CO computers.

Don't worry, Hawaiian flags like crazy on any ticket that's one way (most carriers do this regardless) AND on any last minute schedule changes. I changed a flight to an earlier one and got flagged with the SSSS last year. It's a shame they SSSS you for one-ways, seeing how it's fairly common with HA's pricing structure to purchase and fly on a one-way ticket. Sigh.

aloha

Our experience also. Traveled IAH-OGG, then returned OGG-HNL (one-way, separate ticket) continuing on HNL-IAH. Got SSSSd on the OGG-HNL leg.

The above is nothing compared to what I have had to deal with the past 2 trips....

On my last 2 trips (1 to LAX on Delta; the other to SFO on NW) I was unable to check-in online or at the Kiosk. The screen states that I need to check-in with an agent as my reservation needs special attention.

Upon checking in for both the outbound and inbound portions of the above trips the agent needs to call a 800 number and confirm some data, the process takes roughly 60 seconds and I'm on my way.

I don't get SSSS or anything like that but now I can't check in the easy way (I'll know for sure after my trip to London next week if I have been flagged) There is NO possibility (mathematically) that this is a RANDOM thing as I have traveled on 2 seperate carriers with the same results, these are not 1-way tickets either. My travel companion has the same exact tickets (paid with the same way) and has traveled about the same patterns as I and was not subjected to the same securtiny.

I asked the NW agent what was going on (if she could tell me) the info was limited but she pointed the finger at TSA. When I got through security I went up to a TSA person at SFO and requested a reason as to why this was happening to a person that has flown over 100k since 9/11. A Supervisor stepped in and pointed the finger at the airline; basically saying that it was a CAPS issue. I replied and said, "Is that the same thing you told Senator Kennedy."

For the record, we did not pay cash or nor did we buy our tickets at the last minute. Nor were our flights to OGG one way tickets. We purchased seperate, round trip tickets from LAX to OGG and back on Continental. We did have a seperate reservation however from LAX-MSP. Perhaps that influenced what happened, because we did check our bags through to MSP from OGG. Another thing I noticed on out itinerary is that our incoming flight from HNL to OGG is listed as a Continental codeshare on Hawaiian, the outgoing flight from OGG to HNL has just a Hawaiian flight number.

dude, I dont know about that.....I have flown tons of interline flights on close parteners with no problems, several times with NW and Alaska, NW and CO, NW and even AA (which although it dosent code share directly with, their agents can perform NW check in's etc.....) without a single problem. further, if I do have situations like this, ( and I supposed it depends on how its booked), my interline flights show up on eachothers "reservations" , I will conceede that this propbably has to do with the gallello booking system, (and may be the reason I never have a problem, terrorists must not use worthless travel agents too often?)

This is no joke... though making sure that our airports and planes are secure is very serious business, many of the policies implemented have no hope of stopping a terrorist. Take the one way ticket thing... they're usually more expensive than round trip, so how is this an indicator of anything, especially on the Hawaiian Islands where people island hop all the time? You all remember how Northwest gave passenger info to the government and lied about it, right? So maybe nothing can be done about it... but lets not be naive.

Could it have been because you were two people with the same last name, checking in together, but with separate reservations?

Actually, we have different last names, but maybe the fact that we have the same address but seperate reservations is somehow considered suspicious now?

One way tickets aren't more expensive. For round-trip tickets around the islands, you're paying two one-way fares. So a one-way fare is just a one-way fare...

Something leads me to believe that this is the problem. Since the outgoing flight had only a Hawaiian number (and the return to OGG was a CO codeshare), it was likely that Hawaiian thought you were on a one-way flight (even though you really weren't--but we're talking Hawaiian here...). That's automatic flags for HA (IME and from what others say) and that goes for your wife too since she had been flying the same itin.

aloha

FWIW, I still can't understand why this thread is on the NW board?

And don't take a bump or get FIMed to another airline, because those often show up as one-ways as well.
tom