Last year, I flew round trip from Chicago to Cancun, Mexico. At every stop I was treated like a suspicious terrorist – my luggage was completely unpacked and I was asked to submit to a full body search. I’m a 65-year-old disabled white female with no arrest record. A friend who works in airport security later told me the tickets might have been coded in some way at the time of purchase to attract suspicion by TSA personnel. The extra time TSA personnel spent searching my makeup case and underwear made me miss one flight, as I can’t walk quickly between gates.
So, what does this “coding” or marking look like? If I notice it when buying the tickets, can I object to being singled out and missing my connections as a result?
Completely ignoring my feelings on the TSA one way or the other here, because that has nothing to do with this…I hate that statement. Whenever I hear “I’m a 65 year old white woman” or “He’s a 95 year old grandpa” or “He’s just a 2 year old, do you think he has a bomb in his diaper” the first thing that springs to mind is “If I was a terrorist, I suppose that’s exactly where I’d put it. I’d hire a 65 year old white woman or a 95 year old grandpa or put it in a diaper” Besides, if they don’t check the white women and the Jewish men and the babies then it’s “profiling” and that never goes over well.
We are nearly always pulled out of line for the “random” extra screening, and I’m sure that my 40-something Indian husband with a complexion light enough to pass for the average American assessment of “Middle Easternish” has absolutely nothing to do with that.
/sarcasm
I actually don’t mind it at all. Rather than holding us up, we go to the front of the line.
You wouldn’t see checked luggage during a (domestic) transfer, but obviously you would have carry-ons with you. If you have to go through customs (say to catch a transfer in the next country) you generally have to retrieve your checked bag first so it can be inspected by customs if necessary.
The only time I’ve had to go through a security screening twice was when entering or leaving the Schengen zone. For example, I flew from NYC -> Paris -> Zurich and had to go through TSA security at JFK, then French customs, then French security at CDG before going on to Zurich. On my way back I went Zurich -> Amsterdam -> NYC and went through security when I boarded in Zurich, then thought I was home free when I got to the next gate at Schipol, until I discovered that they do security at the gate there.
I thought that was a bit excessive, but I guess the reason they do it is because you have to go through an insecure area (baggage claim and customs) in order to go between international and domestic Schengen gates.
When I walked up to security (where we all take off shoes and belts) in Chicago and in Cancun, my carry-on was entirely unpacked on site and my make-up case was taken completely apart, with all items taken out and spread out on the table. Careful attention was paid to L’Oreal make-up products, medicine (labeled with pharmacy prescriptions) and clothes and books I had in the carry-on. My purse was also searched – everything in it was taken out and inspected. The entire procedure took between 15 and 20 minutes each time, and was performed on the flight going down and coming back, for a total of four times. I did not see any other passengers asked to submit to this kind of in-depth inspection.
– RaineyCat
OK, you went through security in Chicago and Cancun, which is expected (and of course the TSA doesn’t do airport security in Mexico.) What were the other two times?
I was completely confused, because no one else was put through this complex a procedure, including my husband. They virtually ignored his carry-on items. As it happened four times and I seemed to be the only one undergoing the very public inspection (now I wish I’d brought porno undies!) I wondered if my ticket might have been coded in some way to alert TSA that I was a “dangerous troublemaker”. Has anyone heard of this being done?
The other two times were coming BACK from Cancun. Security there may not have been TSA, but they did the same thing when it came to tearing my carry-on and purse apart, just like in Chicago.
I’ve had, on occasion, more extensive security screens (though not quite the “tear-luggage-apart” sort that you describe). In at least some of those cases, my boarding pass did have a “special code” on it (if I remember correctly, it was something like “SSSS” at the bottom of the boarding pass). However, in those cases, I was flying for business, on tickets that had been purchased less than 24 hours before the flight – and I know that that’s a red flag that the TSA looks for.
So, a couple of questions for you:
How long before your trip did you buy your tickets?
How did you pay for them? (Anything other than paying with a credit card under your own name, or using airline miles, may also raise a red flag.)
I don’t have an answer for you, but in the future you might just want to play the game. Try to check more stuff into your luggage that you won’t need on the flight and things that you will need or can’t afford to lose put into your husband’s carry on. At least that way when they do search your bag it’ll take a lot less time if all your make up and whatever else you can wedge into his carry on don’t have to be searched one by one.
That reminds me of something else. When I was flying from Mexico back to Milwaukee, there was a layover in Chicago. The Chicago to MKE flight is something like 15 minutes. It’s a 90 minute drive but the layover was, IIRC 4 hours. I remember asking someone when I bought the tickets if we could just grab a taxi or rent a car at that point and drive back. We would have been 3 hours before the plane was even boarding. They said that if we were on the first leg but not the second we’d end spend the rest of our lives having trouble flying due to ending up on whatever lists would make life more difficult for traveling. Might not have been true, but it was easier to just wait out the 4 hours (which ended up being a 4 hour layover, 4 hours sitting on the tarmac, sitting overnight in the airport and then getting bussed back to MKE in the morning).
If you skipped a flight at the beginning or in the MIDDLE of your trip, the rest of your reservations would be canceled, but if you skip the last leg, no one will care. Of course, if you had checked luggage, they would not return it to you in Chicago.
By the way, there is hourly bus service on Wisconsin Coach between O’Hare and Mitchell (plus other points). Follow the signs to the “Bus/Shuttle Center” to board. No reservations needed.
Assuming there was no checked luggage to worry about, there was no reason you should have undergone what you did.
Oh yeah, I forgot you were coming back from Mexico, so even if you had any checked baggage, you would have claimed it at customs. After clearing customs and immigration, you could have just walked out the door with your luggage without rechecking it.
Returning to SFO, the passport checker asked questions, then assigned a customs aisle for you. The first time I returned from Thailand he sent me to Aisle 3, which I think was for suspected heroin smugglers. The second time I’d been given some flowers at the Bangkok airport so was sent to Aisle 7 – agricultural.
Moral of the story: Bring flowers with your heroin.
Don’t forget drugs/money, too, going in and out of Mexico. Terrorism isn’t the only security issue, and you don’t have to be of a particular religion/ethnic group to be a drug mule.
Plus there’s also Customs, which might be checking for other things. My senior citizen mother-in-law got her luggage damned near taken apart after an adorable Customs beagle alerted on her carry-on after getting off a plane from Italy. Frankly, the dog was getting some serious side-eye from his handler until MIL remembered she’d had a small bag of sharp cheese and meats in there on the way to her flight, as a snack. It had lasted long enough as a doggie-detectable scent to make him think she was smuggling in undeclared products.
They were looking through your makeup - did you have any liquid makeup (liquid foundation, liquid concealer, mascara) mixed into the same bag as non-liquid? Those have to be separated out into a quart-size baggie along with every other liquid item.
