I am new to this forum. Has anyone had any experience with vindictive airline employees intentionally flagging your boarding pass (SSSS+) just to get you undeserved attention by TSA in retaliation for making complaints?.

I “computer checked in” at the airline ticket counter two hours before my flight time and the computer said my flight was delayed until 9:30 am. Original scheduled departure time was 8:55 am. The boarding pass said boarding was at 9:00 am. I went to the gate at 9:00 am and the plane had already left and I was PO’d. They told me the next available flight would be 12 hours later. I had to argue and complain with a supervisor but I ultimately got a seat on the next flight that left at 2:40 p.m.

When I got my new boarding pass, it had SSSS on it and other handwritten blue marks. I went back through security and was immediately singled out for the “puff machine” and a full body pat down and a chemical wipe of all my carry-on stuff. The “puff machine” apparently detected nitroglycerin on me. No I am not kidding. I come to find out that there is good and bad nitro and it is a by-product or component of some adhesives found in shoes, etc and the puff machine gives nuisance alarms all the time.

There is no doubt in my mind that I was set up. Has anyone heard of this happening before? Does anyone know anyone on the inside who can tell me how often this is happening? Anyone know what all these codes are on my boarding pass? Can the puff machine be artificially set off? I am still very unhappy with the whole event.

Thanks in advance for all answers.^

Sueyoulater

Welcome to Flyertalk.

Happens all the time that airline employees team up with the TSA to degrade passengers. You missed your flight (which was your fault, not that of the airline) and pissed off the airline employee in your attempts to get on another flight. Airline employee finally reacommodated you but got the last laugh.

Piece of advice: Delayed flights don't mean you can stroll to the gate after the original boarding time, like you did. Sometimes delayed flights aren't quite as delayed as the airline estimates they are.

So the bottom line is that you argued and complained about something for which you were at fault. Airline employee taught you a lesson.

Actually at ORD it works out great when you fly one of the third tier airlines. SSSS gets you to the head of line and bypass a whole block of folks waiting in line!

Woo Hoo!

I am not a frequent flyer. If there are "unwritten rules" that are not readily shared, there is no reason for me to know as much.

If you are aware of any official policy or FAA rules, etc.. that I could review and which says they can do what they did, I would like to see it. I would be stunned and amazed to find out that they can give you a printed boarding pass that says this is boarding time and then then leave 35 minutes early. The following is an excerpt from a letter I am sending to Horizon Air, that emphasizes my point:

".....what would have happened if my almost deaf, 85 year-old mother had been in the same position because she could not hear or understand the claimed announcement that the flight was leaving prematurely. Horizon Air would then have abandoned an elderly, near deaf lady who had just missed her flight and must now sit around the airport for a total of fourteen hours (until the 9:00 o’clock evening flight left that had the first opening)."

Passengers should be entitled to reasonably rely on ticket agent and computer check in information. They should at least warn you on your boarding slip that the delay may not be permanent and that you should assume it will leave on time or other such advice. Had I been so forewarned, this would not have been a problem.

I still would like to see in the rules somehwere that says they can do this if they want.

Thanks for yor reply.

Sueyoulater

I would suggest a traveling companion for your 85 year old-near deaf mother. It will make her journey much easier.

There aren't any policies or rules that say they can do what they did. That doesn't matter.

What matters is that there aren't any policies or rules that prohibit what they did.

Don't get me wrong - that the airline employee had available to them such a drastic means of punishing you is very wrong. Our SSSS system should be dismantled (and should never have been enacted).

And it stinks when a flight departs earlier than the revised delayed departure estimate. But nearly everyone else on the flight was probably sitting near the gate and heard the "good news" that the flight wasn't as delayed as earlier thought. Where were you? (As a very frequent flyer, I'd be sitting in the airline club/lounge, where I'd be taking a serious chance of missing my flight, but I'm a risk-taker.)

Again, what you endured was wrong. A curse on anyone who thinks airline employees should be able to conspire with government agents to mistreat you like that.

i doubt it happened that way. Getting SSSSed on a last-minute rebooking is very common.

Getting a positive ETD indication has nothing to do with the airline.

Unless, of course, you trigger the ETD or puffer alarm as the OP did. Hopefully if that happens the subsequent delay--and initial panic by some gung-ho TSO that he's made "The Catch"--doesn't make the pax miss the flight.


But the airline TA could have easily deselected the OP from the SSSS.

BTW Sueyoulater, welcome to FlyerTalk.

My experience suggests this is true as well - as a UK passport holder, I never get SSSS except when I am rebooked at short notice (weather delays or cancellations), but then get selected 100% of the time

It's also possible that the rebooking was ticketed as separate one-way ticket at the last minute, in which case the SSSS is virtually automatic, no vengeful ticket agent is required.

Your boarding pass would have had the original departure time and perhaps a boarding time. There are ample signs around most airports advising you to be on board x minutes before departure. Those are your deadlines.

Flight delay information on monitors are estimates only. There is one thing you can count on: When a departure is delayed, that plane is leaving ASAP.

While I'm sympathetic to your feelings, I hope you haven't sent that letter yet, SYL. Dealing in hypotheticals, i.e. deaf grannies, won't get you anywhere. Your complaint will be given much more attention if you deal with specifics, who, what and where, as they pertained to you.

I'm pretty sure many of us missed a flight in similar circumstances, but usually that it is one lesson, few of us need to have repeated lol.

IMHO, that seems to have been the case. We've all been through it, during IROPS, and it's no biggie.

On the other hand, yelling about it with a handle of "Sueyoulater" seems to imply an agenda...

I can't really agree with you here. If the airline gives you a boarding pass with a departure date of 9:30, and tells you to be at the gate by 9:00 (boarding pass said boarding starts at 9:00) , it's not your fault if the plane has already left at 9:00, and the airline better does whatever it can to get you to your destination quickly.

As for the SSSS -- I don't think this was an evil plot. He got a last-minute one-way ticket on a different carrier. Of course he'll be SSSS'd. Happened to me as well, and in my case the atmosphere between me and the check-in agent was very pleasant.

HTB.

Well, that's not how it works. Passengers are required to be at the gate, ready to board. Delays don't absolve passengers of that responsibility.

The OP checked in at the airline ticket counter two hours prior to the original departure time. Since the OP hasn't returned to answer my question ("where did they go?"), we can only speculate about where the OP was when boarding was called and the flight departed. They really should have stayed close enough to the gate so that they would receive updated info.

Sure, the new booking caused the SSSS to apply, although the OP didn't say they ended up on a different carrier (only that they forced the agent to find them a seat on an earlier flight than the 12 hours later flight).

But what you and everyone else replying to this thread have forgotten is that the ticket agent could have overridden the SSSS and printed a new BP without it. So, yes, the airline employee "caused" the OP to suffer the full treatment, since the employee could have exempted the OP. I've got no proof that the employee thought it throught like that, but the OP suspects it and my guess is that the employee took some pleasure in it.

The SSSS certainly sucks, but he hit the jackpot setting the puffer off. Even if he hadn't had SSSS on there, the puffer going off guaranteed a full secondary anyway.

Lost either way.