First, it was probably not TSA, but a private contractor that examined your ID, so in this case you really can't blame the TSA.

Of course the TSA is at fault, as the contractor would be operating under a contract from the TSA. The TSA is ultimatley accountable for the performance of thier subcontractors.

When CO loses your luggage, even though the majority of it's baggage handling is contracted out, CO is still accountable. Exact same thing here.

Ah that was the first mistake

If the boarding passes were scanned at the checkpoint to confirm that the reservation was valid and the name matched your photo id which matched your appearance, the whole system might be considered to be of some security benefit. Unfortunately, since there are gaps where you can circumvent all the checks, it doesn't much matter. Only the selection of banned objects and the quality of the screening have any real bearing on security. The rest just hassle law-abiding travelers.

As for the original topic, I'm my parents' kid and I've checked them in online for their flights several times in the past. Usually because I'm their "TA" and book the tickets through my account, so it's just easier.

You believed what you were told? It is NOT required. If you do not have ID you get extra screening, the SSSS treatment.

This belongs in the Travel Safety & Security forum.

Xyzzy
CO forum moderator

You are completely mistaken. The ID checkers are contractors of the airlnes, not the TSA. Wanna be mad at someone? Be mad at the airline that hired the contractors.

Yes and Yes.

The boarding pass and id checks are examples of the "appearance of security" and not actually effective security measures.

There are several ways of looking at systematic errors.

First is the "design error" element. In other words -- if implemented perfectly -- is a particular security measure designed to achieve a specific result. The boarding pass is an unsecure document, and as such susceptible to effective forgery even by amatuers. Driver's licenses and other forms of government-issued photo id are a bit more effort, but routinely achievable by high school football players across the country.

However, even assuming the ID is not forged and the boarding pass is not forged, they are only useful in potentially identifying identity after a security breach has taken place.

Second, is the "operator error" element. In other words, you can have the absolute most theoretically effective tool, but if the person performing the task does not perform it correctly, then the process is a failure.

In this case, you take a process with ample design flaws and complicate it with the kind of operator error you experienced. From a statistics perspective, its a multiplicative situation.

So if you start with a flawed design and combine it with inattentive personnel, it's fairly easy to reach the point where the mere toss of coin is a more effective security screening procedure.

I would posit that the screening checkpoints are actually worse in preventing the next hijacking than they were pre-9/11. Though it has been over five years, the WTMD and x-ray machines are not really any better. The puffers may be better, but it appears there have been some issues with them. And they are easily avoided by anyone that wants to since so few have been deployed.

But what has happened is that the list of prohibited items has so greatly expanded from toothpaste to water to pocket knives that it becomes much more difficult for the screeners to find the items that really matter (e.g. EWR's 90%+ failure rate in a test that was leaked). If I ask you to look for just three items when you are screening, you will be much more likely to find them than if I ask you to look for 100 items of which those three are a part. It is just the way our minds work. As such, the items that really matter (guns and explosives) are more likely to be missed now than they were before IMHO.

Where we are better off post-9/11 is that we now have hardened cockpit doors and a different approach to how we deal with hijackers. Flight 93 is an example of that. If those passengers were forewarned earlier, they might have been able to prevent the hijacking. As it was, they did prevent the hijackers from destroying their intended target.

So are we better? I think yes, but in spite of TSA screening points.

That seems statistically likely.

There's a fair amount of math and industrial job design/psychology you could use to analyze it. But the logic you laid out gets to a big part of the problem. Given a relatively constant inspection time, the greater the number and variety of items you look for, the greater the likelihood that at least one of those prohibited items will pass thru undetected.

In plain language, it's a choice between doing a few jobs well and large number of jobs poorly.

Toss into that the mind-numbing randomness and number of truly trivial changes.

The result is a flawed process which -- even if perfect -- is almost certainly to be misapplied by under skilled, undertrained, undermotivated and understaffed personnel.

Which just reinforces what I have said before: The TSA is a political solution, not a security solution.

Simply amazing.