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...

I won't bother posting some of my creative but extremely negative interpretations of SSSS. Suffice it to say, many of them encourage Admiral David Stone to do something biologically obscene to himself.

However, if you use one-way tickets and you want to avoid SSSS, get your FF# for the carrier whose metal you're on into the record prior to ticketing. That means if it's a codeshare, you need a FF# for the carrier operating the codeshare. Switch out FF#s after clearing "security", never before. Always make your own reservations when rerouted during irregular ops, never let your original carrier rebook you.

Actually that's exactly why they use SSSS. Not as obvious as XXXX, but (most of) the TSA guys can decipher it. :rolleyes:

I think XOXO would've been the best choice. Given the intimate nature of parts of the secondary screening process, "hugs and kisses" seems perversely appropriate.

If only airline ticketing agents had color printers, they could give passengers a photographic hint of what's about to happen to female SSSSelectees:
SSSS pictorial representation

Moderator Comment: Per request, the link to the 'SSSS pictorial representation' has been removed due to questionable content.

I always thought it was onomatopoeia. Warning, those SSSSlithery SSSSnakes are about to be all over you!

Systematic Secondary Security Search?

Sorry Security Sure Sucks

Screeners Satisfying Security Standards

Satisfying Security Screening Standards

S.S. squared?

Exponentially worse than the S.S.

Probably the closest to what it should mean. Actually there isn't any meaning to the four Ss (if you didn't figure that out yet). Someone decided one, two and three Ss were too easy to miss and four Ss were just right.

Must have been Goldilocks. :D

Some airlines have icons on their boarding passes instead of SSSS to identify selectees. Talk about denial, can't come up with a sarcastic acronym. :D

Well, duh! Of course the content is questionable. What's even more questionable is the TSA's judgement in deciding to order screeners to touch womens' breasts. The latter is exactly the action depicted in the image that was de-linked. You see, TSA, FlyerTalk responds to community outrage, but screeners grab our breasts whether we're outraged or not.

Oh, get off it already. We don't touch breasts and it's insulting to us to hear this exaggeration. We touch over, under and around the breast - not the actual breast. Anyone who does a patdown as depicted in that photo needs to not be allowed in the wanding area until properly retrained as to what constitutes "the breast" and how not to touch it.