Orlando Gate Screening
 

I will try to do this without invective. There was a TSA screener during boarding at the AA gate 20 October for the MCO to ORD flight doing a random bag check for bombs. This is the first time I've encountered this gate screening routine since 2001. Does anyone know if TSA is again randomly doing boarding screening checks nationwide, or just in Orlando.

Yes, it's nationwide. :)

POHA, as discussed in this thread.

:td:

Make 'em change their gloves and file a complaint at the earliest opportunity. :mad:

...especially the gloves part. Make sure they are new gloves right out of the box (chances are that they didn't bring a box with them for the gate grope).

When you make them change gloves, you're likely to encounter these excuses/actions (all of which I have actually had happen to me at a checkpoint, so it would be worse at a gate):

1. "I just put them on, they're a new pair."
2. "I haven't been inside anyone's bag with these gloves yet."
3. They pull another pair out of their pocket and not from a box.
4. They think they go out of sight, open a drawer, and fake putting on a new pair.

Depending on the demeanor of the screener, my calm, but direct, responses to these actions have been statements like:

1. "Did I not clearly communicate that I want you to change your gloves?"
2. "What part of 'change your gloves' don't you understand?"

It's interesting that, when engaged in these gloves confrontations, I have never had a screener call over their supervisor. Some will go through OJ-like contortions to put on a new pair, but, that's tough.

It doesn't matter whether or not you care about germs and disease or not. The important thing is that this is one area where you can push back and they can't say no. They have to change gloves when you require them to change their gloves. Tell them to change their gloves; don't ask.

While true, also be careful of doing that during the course of gate screening. Like any other screening procedure, once it's begun, it can't be stopped short of it coming to it's end. If the airline directs you to board the flight anyway, before the TSO gets back to conclude the screening, then they open themselves up to a rather hefty fine.

The nearest actual box of gloves could very well be several minutes walk away from the gate itself, and if the captain doesn't want to wait, you just consigned yourself to missing the flight to try to get under a TSO's skin over a bag search that should take, at the most, thirty seconds, and that's if you have a stuffed-full carry-on.

And while the TSO is en route, other passengers might stop them to ask questions, or to ask for directions. The passive-aggressive and vindictive TSO could also just take their very sweet time in getting there and returning.

'What', a TSO using retaliation as a form of punishment? Didn't think that was allowed! Of course your thinking it means that in fact consideration of a show of authority is not far from TSO's minds.

Explain why the screener would not equip themselves with needed supplies when given the task of gate screening. Surely they would know that more than one pair of gloves might be needed. A real professional goes to a job with all tools needed for that task.

Lastly, since this was a gate screening and if I ask the screener to change gloves before touching my bag then the screening has in fact not started. Only after changing gloves as required by TSA policy can the screening start.

It's not, but it'd be devilishly hard to prove, and you and I and everyone else knows that it happens.

I've been doing this for six years, my friend. There's very little about this job that I don't think about, and I've gotten really good at digging into the minds and mental processes of my coworkers. Would you rather I had said nothing, and then someone who read this thread tried it, and subsequently missed their flight? I'm just trying to lay it out there for people to know, and they can choose for themselves whether or not to take their chances.

Most screeners do, in the form of taking extra pairs of gloves out of the box and putting them in their pocket for easy access later without having to hike all the live-long way back to the box. That, however, according to #3 on his list, isn't good enough for FliesWay2Much.

It's not quite the same as at the checkpoint. The screening process begins at the checkpoint once you step foot through the WTMD or submit your items for x-ray inspection. However, once you're inside the sterile area, screening can take place at any time whatsoever (though, generally, is going to be limited to the gate areas during boarding if they're going to do it at all; doing it elsewhere would require some really cracker-jack justification)

At that point, once you were notified of the need to inspect your baggage, the screening has begun regardless if you still have physical possession of your belongings. Notification and advisement is the first step of the screening process in this case.

This discussion illustrates exactly why TSA must be removed from this nations airports and other transportation systems.

Proof that the fairly simple act of screening for weapons, incendaries, and explosives has been taken to a level never comptemplated or expected.

TSA is truly a danger to America!

Sounds like an IDB (involuntary de-boarding, not an acronym we see in TS&S much! :) ) to me. If the pax presents himself for boarding prior to the airline's cutoff time for boarding and the airline leaves without him, then I think there's a pretty good case.

Standard compensation? That will be ~$400, cash, please, in addition to rebooking me on the next available flight on any airline in any class of service available. :)

All because a TSO felt it necessary to paw through belongings that had already been screened at the checkpoint.

After I'm paid, I'll be happy to let the airline and the TSA squabble over who eats the tab.

Ahh, yes, the retaliatory screening that TSA management denies exists.

Seems taking gloves out of the box and putting them in a pocket would comtaminate the gloves. A more prudent course of action would be to take the box to the checkpoint wherever that might be.

Surely you agree that placing dirty gloves in someones stuff is not respectful to that person.

Even while inside the box, you do know that the gloves aren't sterile, right?

Absolutely, but I think we have a difference of opinion on what "dirty" specifically means in this case.

Have they actually ever said that it doesn't exist, or have they just said that it's not permitted? I ask only because I haven't actually seen anyone from TSA say that it doesn't happen, only that it's not allowed. You may have read something I haven't, though.

Dean, my friend, it is not a matter of being sterile. It's a matter of being reasonably clean. A screeners pockets could have any sort of contaminates in them.

Say you screen a bag that has someones worn undies in it and then place your hands in your pockets for any reason; you have transferred whatever was on your gloves to your pockets. We don't know what your gloves may have contacted prior to your getting to us. If I don't see you take a pair of gloves from a clean place then I have to suspect that they might be contaminated. Just that simple. It's not personal, it's for my health and safety.

Could you tell us just why you guys think you need gloves at all. It's not like they are sterile!

What studentff has said is 100% correct. The airline must either take a delay or pay IDB to a passenger who has presented him/herself for boarding within the cutoff time.

I'd like to see that happen with some frequency. At $400 per IDB + writing a FIM to another carrier, the airlines may finally grow a spine and take Idiot Boy Hawley's little harassment group and throw it out into the street where it belongs.

Ah, got'cha'. We kind of had a little disconnect there with regards to that. The rule TSA has in place, requiring TSOs to change their gloves upon request with no questions asked (officially, anyway) was set in place with an interest in the public's health in mind. That wasn't how this conversation started though. It was being advocated to use the protocol set up in the interest of public health and peace of mind as a way, specifically, to bludgeon TSOs for having to do their jobs. It was, in effect, being made personal at that point.

Back when TSA first started, gloves were provided (and here in HSV, they were made out of vinyl, and they really, really sucked) but, for all practical purposes, they were optional unless a passenger specifically requested you to wear gloves. Following an incident in the north-east somewhere (it's been years, my memory's rusty on that specific tidbit of information) a screener acquired a staph infection from a passenger during screening, and the wearing of gloves (which specifically block biological contaminants) became mandatory.

Later, as a result of countless numbers of cuts and other minor injuries (such as from a broken screw protruding from the bottom of a passenger's bag, and encountered during normal screening functions), TSA adopted the nitrile gloves, since nitrile provides some low-impact cut resistance. The glove itself absorbs the cut, leaving the skin beneath untouched (though, speaking from experience, even in the absence of skin breakage, it still hurts).

And, is it just me, or is FT having some database problems here just now?