Red stick-on dot, about 3/4 inch with letters TSA was attached to my checked baggage label, carefully folded to be visible on both sides of the tag.

No piece of paper inside indicating bag had been checked. Is this new? What does it mean?

I mostly ask because the bag went in with combo lock unlocked and came out with the combo changed. (I did NOT forget the combo!!)

Probably a new form of labeling the bags that TSA checked.

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I've had red dots, blue squares and a spiffy gold star attached to my bag tags in recent months. All they seem to indicate is that your bag was screened by the TSA in whatever city you departed from.

I have had this done on my bags for over a year now. Just the TSA sticker with the Airport Code on there, guess that tells you where the bag came from and that it had been checked, even if they do not open it up and look in, I guess it means that they put it thru the x-ray machine, but who knows if hte machine is really on or not.

~icorproadie

nothing here

Almost every bag.

I think we're supposed to eventually go to one standard sticker. Don't know when. I guess they have to decide on a real cute design, then award the contract to someone who can produce these after giving them time to come up with "additional unanticipated costs and expenses" which will be passed on to you, the paying customer.

There are some things about government bureaucracies that never change. I don't have a problem with the various stickers, labels and other markings used at the different airports. The important thing is that the baggage handlers understand how to recognize a bag that has been screened by TSA. Shouldn't matter whether those markings are cool-looking or just plain ugly.

Kind of reminds me when the Army was experimenting with the rough exterior boots, or as we called them, the "inside outside" boots. We were skeptical that we would really ever get to wear them simply because there was no way to polish them to a bright shine. "If it can't look pretty, we can't wear it" seemed to be the rule. Yeah, when you're out in the buckwheat playing cat and mouse with the bad guys, the last thing you want is anything shiny, reflective or glaring to draw their attention. But when you're standing in formation for the end-of-month parade, those boots certainly do look sloppy!

Same mentality applies here: appearance over functionality.

I guess it depends on airport size, passenger load and availability of screening technologies. The article you posted is somewhat accurate but also misleading.

Every checked bag is screened before being loaded aboard a commercial airliner. Is everything screened by the CTX? No. Do they have to be? No. There are acceptable alternatives that allow us to screen items other than CTX.

However, if we were to screen everything through the CTX, then you would either have flight delays or simply have some bags that wouldn't be loaded aboard your aircraft.

Again, this is a matter of risk management versus risk avoidance.

They've already done that. We've been using them for a while now. They're shiny gold holographic stickers with scoring on them that make them a real pain to remove.

What a huge waste of money!!! Do you really need a sticker to show your bag was screened???

Saw one of these the last time I flew with checked bags (in January), but if I recall it did have some DCA-specific label to it, too.

After seeing the clusterf*** that is the baggage screening area at IAD after clearing ICE, yes, I do think they would need the stickers.

They've been using them here in DEN for quite awhile. They have the airport code on them.

We have the holographic stickers too, just not using them until we exhaust our genereic stickers first.

It's not a matter of using a specific sticker; it's a matter of marking a bag that has been cleared. I think you'd agree that there needs to be a mechanism in place to identify bags that have already been cleared as a double-check method to prevent uncleared bags from mistakenly being placed on board. Shouldn't happen, but why take chances? I see the use of stickers as a smart, inefficient method. However, I don't agree that using the fancy TSA holographic stickers as a standard. It makes no difference to you as the customer whether a green, red or yellow dot with the letters TSA stamped across are used. All that matters is that the bag handlers recognize that a bag has been cleared before they load it on the plane. Should they come across one that doesn't have one of these distinctive markings, then they need to notify an airline ramp supervisor to have the matter handled.

I don't think using stickers is a waste of money. I do think that using these holographic stickers is. However, it is the nature of government bureaucracies to make everything appear official, uniform and standard in appearance.