I flew in from Europe the other day,

All 3 of my bags were "inspected" and had the TSA card in them ,
only one item was broken

All 3 are Samsonite clamshell cases with the side latches,
NONE were re-locked which just means moving the inner latch the opposite way they opened then !

OK TSA, whats your problem ? its only a latch, no combo, no key ,

If they had opened and my stuff lost I lose, TSA just keeps on doing its thing

Is this normal ?

Rally

Actually no its not normal. But from what you wrote there seems to be a possibility that when TSA got the bags that they were unlocked. Stop and think about it a second, your bags were inspected prior to departing Europe, is it possible that they were unlocked and not relocked there and that this is the way that the TSA folks found them? Also, on the broken item, since there were others in your bag than TSA it is possible that the item was broken by them. Assigning the blame to TSA without thinking about it is easy, after all we are the devil�s representatives on earth.

TSO�s are required to relock bags after screening them if they were locked when they got them. Sometimes it does not happen, after all we are screening some 2.5million bags every day so some get missed, but for the most part things go the way they should.

I have to disagree with you on that. I gave up on locks and started putting heavy duty wire ties on the zippers. The wire ties are made from 12 gauge copper wire (just got finished rewiring my house so lots of scrap pieces). I think at this point I am 6 of 8 or so for them not being replaced and lost after being inspected.

I have also tried split rings (aka key chain rings) they fair about the same but usually they are not lost.

OK.....I will give you it might not be TSA USA, But thats the paper put inside,

no matter I have had this happen in the USA too......

Rally

I have never had a lock put back on a bag after it was inspected, I too have just given up on them, they are just removed for the lock collection somebody is starting.

If you are using a heavy gauge wire then my guess is that it is being cut, and there is nothing in the SOP requiring that we replace them. Same with the "split ring" key chains.

Now, if you use "Zip Ties", and we have replacements on hand, we will replace those.

If you have zip-ties on hand why wouldn't you use them to replace the wire that was cut off? Why would you only replace zip-ties and not wire or key-rings?

Probably not covered in their training.

That makes sense.

Therefore, the TSA won't do it.

If a TSO can not undo wire such as what I have put on then they are <redacted> wimps. In the case of not being able to remove a split rings then they are %$# stupid. As for the zip ties. Nope sorry - while your airport may have them most do not.

JHFC, and theses are the people inspecting our luggage.

I've encountered the issue of TSA not re-locking my locked bag, even with a TSA-approved lock. It has only happened once, but it sure did make me angry when I saw my unlocked lock dangling on my bag when I claimed it.

I guess I can't complain too much since I still had a functional lock at the end of the day.

Saying TSO's are screening some 2. 5 million bags daily is misleading.

Each inspection point is screening bags to the level of air traffic at that airport. Some airports will screen more and some much less.

Each screener has a responsibility and if re-locking a bag is part of that responsibility then there is no excuse that the bag was not relocked, and a bigger problem, there is poor quality assurance that TSA employees are performing their jobs correctly.

A few weeks ago the TSA not only took the TSA lock off my husband's brand new, never used Travelpro bag, they cut the zipper and ruined the whole bag. They left one of their love notes inside his bag. What a group of lazy jerks.

God I hate that organization!

Because it can be very difficult to remove the zip-ties if one does not have the proper tool. We dont wan't to be accused of locking someone out of their bags now do we.

On second thought, we get accused of everything else, so what the heck.

^^^