I fly out of MCO every other week or so to DC. This morning I was on the 6:30 am departure to ATL and the TSA was at the gate. When boarding they were pulling people out of line that had a starbucks in their hand and waving a stripe of paper over the opening of the cup. I have never seen this before. Anyone else seen this and what in the world are they testing for? Monitoring to ensure the coffee is hot enough??

No, this security theater has been practiced for quite some time. Just one more waste of tax dollars.

I experienced something similar, I was boarding & they wanted to check by bag. I was boarding Business Class & TSA took almost 5-7 minutes going through my carryon bag. This was pretty annoying & in the mean time GA called out for other zones to board. So far I haven't run into this at other airports, guess its a security measure & cannot be avoided....

The TSA at MCO are amongst the worse and always seem to have something to proove.....

Perhaps this week they are performing quality control for Starbucks, insuring the product is still hot.... Maybe they should go back to playing with the trains.

Have seen gate checks recently at DCA and LGA Marine Air Terminal. Total waste of time.

While many FT'ers speak very lowly of TSA "stuff", and it certainly is a "rubber stamp" type of operation, I feel they at least are much better than the bare minimum wage x-ray'ers from years ago who most of the time looked like they were falling asleep while watching the screen!

That said, are you sure you're talking about MCO? Orlando, McCoy int'l airport? In Florida? Near Disney World? Are they also waving the "strip", as you call it, over all of the jars of baby food stored in all of the diaper bags and strollers? And when you say Starbucks, were they checking ONLY Starbucks, not McD's coffee, or any other vendor's drinks? Cold drinks - or only hot?

I was at MCO over Labor Day, and I did see something really wierd with the trams. It's a little hard to explain, but, people would exit the tram landside, then they wouldn't allow ANYONE to board until another TSA official did a sort of "sweep" thru the tram, as though they were looking for something! They had ropes on poles - kind of like in a bank - keeping people off til they were finished with their visual sweep, then they opened them up. What's that all about?!?! <shhhh - maybe it's top secret - along with the coffee & strip routine!>

I see some of them at the gates in JAX. I was on their way back home to PHX via ATL. I showed him out with my ID & BP, too. I don't have any problems from TSA at all.

Yep and yep, seen both. For the tram, they actually had pax stand behind a roped off area before they would let them board. Well, the area from just past security up to the roped off area is pretty small so it created quite a logjam until it was cleared.

And here's another, compliments of our finest TSO's at MCO. Periodically they will remove people from boarding at the gate to check their carry-on bags. But here's the funny part... they only did it to Y pax. Never stopped any F pax. Guess DYKWIA may work.

One day I was running a little late from the SC and got to the gate just in time for general boarding. Sure enough, missing the F boarding got me pulled over by TSA for a bag screen. Lesson learned.

Bottom line, I have no doubt if TSA authorized body cavity searches of pax at the gate, the TSO's at MCO would be there with smiles on their faces.

This has to do with the international arrivals at the 60-99 gates. In order to allow international arriving passengers to exit without having to enter the secure area, the procedures you note are in place during international arriving flights, because during those times the trams alternate between "sterile" and "non-sterile" use. Happens every day when international flights arrive.

Screening passengers at the gate only reinforces that they don't do a good enough job at the normal security checkpoint. They should just do it once properly and leave us alone after we enter airside.

Sheesh.....

I can fake the part. - - Sometimes I do it quite well!!!

I'm totally amazed, and for some reason, quite surprised, that there's actually a logical reason for this!!! Any ideas on the coffee thing?

Seeing more secondary gate screens in MSP...I usually hesitate to be the first in the boarding queue but seems they let the first 10 or so go through then start selecting their um...customers.

This coffee check was during the First Class boarding zone. Two people had starbucks coffee cups and they both got checked. Not sure if they did it for all types of coffee as all first class pax were drinking starbucks!

In addition I have notice an increase in DCA of them doing random testing of your hands. They use the same machine to check the hand swab that they use to check bags for explosives.

I guess it is just to make us all feel secure and that our tax dollars are hard at working!

I really don't understand all the anti-TSA attitude on this forum. I would think that as some of the worlds most frequent flyers you would also be some of the TSA's greatest fans.

If they delay you for 10 extra seconds they are azzes. If they miss something they are worthless...they are in a no-win situation.

I have been secondary screened many times. My wife gets wanded, due to a replaced knee, EVERY time she goes through security. A month after 9-11 in SAN I set off the metal detector...the wand picked up something on my right ankle also. They had me take off my shoes and socks...roll my pant legs up..and had a soldier with a M-16 come stand over me. (I mentioned something about it being my magnetic personality...which they didnt find funny). Its all part of traveling in this day and time.

I think the TSA should take an idea from Delta and have some frequent flyers do the TSA jobs for a day.

<prepared to be flamed>

I do believe that TSA serves a good purpose, but they get a little crazy with stuff that makes no sense at all. MCO is definitely one of those airports. Since you can't bring liquids thru security, the drinks would have to be bought in a secure area. So they are checking liquids that someone bought from a vendor. Just doesn't make sense.

I am fine with the additional search when going thru security if you set off the medal detector or they find something that doesn't look right.