SSSS Stands for???
 

Somebody asked me what exactly SSSS stood for and got me thinking... Anybody have a clue.

My guess has been So Superfluously Super Screwed, but somehow, I don't think that's what the TSA had in mind.

It stands for seriously so severely sucks

:D

OK...in reality, I don't think it stands for anything. It is merely there to be "eye catching" for the person who has to break the news to you that you should proceed to your left for screening. Although that SSSS isn't all that eye catching on the receipt tape self service boarding passes.

I mentally consider the SSSS procedure to mean: Super Stupid Secondary Search. However, SSSS more often describes the pax: Scared Sh##less Search Selectee.

For "Eye Catching" value, they could have picked any other letter. XXXX works well. Works even better when you overstrike it with OOOO or something like that.

Every time I see SSSS, ironically, it remnds me of Nazi Germany's SS. "May I see you papers, please?"

A really bad choice, in my view.

Actually, the whole program is stupid but we won't go there.

Actually, the letters are printed upside down, in order to keep the traveler from understanding their meaning.

Just turn your boarding pass upside down and...uh...never mind ;)

Dreaded 4S's
 

SSSS = Super Security Strip Search

I'm not sure if SSSS truly is an acronym, but I've heard it can stand for "Special Security Screening Selectee."

The answers everyone else has posted so far are much more accurate though :D

SSSS is a warning to any terrorist to immeadiately give any WMD's to someone else without the SSSS.

But of course, in the first place, no terrorist would buy a one way ticket which is the usual generator of SSSS.

Very true, I was on a DL flight and got the beautiful SSSS (never get it on AA), so I gave my wife my carry-on luggage to go through security with. Now, you'd think the TSA guy would say "Hey lady, why do you have 2 rolling suitcases,"....didn't even blink an eye.

And for revealing THAT secret information, you will be shipped off to Gitmo... an dback, on the worst seat on a 757. Next, you will be giving it all away to terrorists and industrial spies, even such top secret information as what radar spelled backward stands for. ;)

Fortunately there are 34 rows to pick from, each equally bad.

Row 36 may be the worst - especially B or E. No recline, stuck way against the back, between two linebackers... That's not a ride, that's a sentence!

No SSSS for some one ways
 

I did recently buy two one ways from DFW to LBB (out on AA and back on DL), and didn't get 4Sed in either direction. Of course....it was LBB. Not exactly a high profile destination.

I however, did travel BOS-ORD last year on a one way and was most definitely SSSS-ed.

Paging Spiff...