What spunk! What a lady!

I’ll bet the agent will be telling that one to the grandkids someday. . . . !

I think they have gone to far this time.

I was going on a regional flight and had a round-trip ticket I had purchased in advance. I had carry-on luggage, but no check-in, as I was going for only overnight.

Didn’t even notice the marking until a policeman at security asked me about it. He looked at my ticket, questioned me a bit about the purpose of my trip, why I was living in Thailand (I’m American) — some brief and easy questions. I finally asked him why he was asking me the questions, and he explained what the marking meant.

Then he took me back to the counter area, but told me to go up by myself and ask for a new boarding pass. I did, and the lady was very apologetic — it was the lady who had given it to me. She said she had marked it by mistake but couldn’t give me a new boarding pass.

A bit alarmed, I went back to the policeman and told him what she had said. He told me to go with him, and we went back to the counter, with my boarding pass in his hand. He handed it over and said (in English), “Give him a new boarding pass — now. You made a mistake.” She protested she couldn’t because of the rules, but he told her he didn’t care what the airline rules were, he wasn’t going to have me delayed and searched because of her error.

End of argument.

BUT — I was worried about missing my plane, and told him so. He got on his walkie talkie, walked me through security since he checked my carry-on bag himself after having me empty my pockets into it, as we *walked.* An airline employee pulled up in a cart, and took me, the policeman still with me, to the airplane, which the policeman had ordered held (but only two or three minutes — just enough that without his order, I would have missed the flight!). THEN the policeman walked me all the way to the door of the aircraft, though of course I stopped to give my boarding pass and passport to gate personnel.

He had written down my name and passport number along the way, and assured me I’d never have that problem again, unless I did something to mess up.

That was *years* ago — maybe 8 or so — and I’ve never had the slightest problem or a marked-up boarding pass since!

Yes, I was delayed a bit, but I had arrived late in the first place due to heavy traffic. But actually, I was impressed with everyone’s performance, even the poor check-in lady, since she didn’t make the rules.

I realize none of that involved the TSA, but my limited experiences with them have been just fine; I’ve been back to the U.S. only twice since it came into existence.

I was once on the watchlist…I booked on line, but wasn’t able to select seats and I had to check in at the ticket counter. When I arrived it is when I found out I was on the list and had to show ID and answer additional questions…this was after I left TSA and had a security clearence. I was delayed but in the end did not get any additional screening.

- Ground crew, even those with access to the aircraft, don’t go through screening.

- IDs (provided by the traveler) are checked against a piece of paper (also provided by the traveler). The piece of paper isn’t checked to see if it’s valid until you get to the gate, and the ID is only checked to see if it looks genuine. There is no way for TSA to determine that the piece of paper, or the ID, presented by the traveler is actually valid.

- The search for (fictional) dangerous liquids has the TSA so preoccupied confiscating makeup and toothpaste that they are more likely to miss things that are actually dangerous. Like maybe the stuff in the uninspected lunchbox carried by that guy, over there, who cleans the airplanes. Example – while lighters were prohibited items, I regularly carried three or four of them through screening.

Airport ‘security’ is purely theatrics. It’s a case of politicians saying ‘We must do something. This is something, therefore we must do it.’. It’s not a reasoned and reasonable approach.

As for the randomness – I used to get selected for screening about 80% of the time. I joined a FF program. Now I don’t get selected.

And if the news reports are accurate, the 9/11 hijackers had round trip first class tickets purchased using frequent flyer miles weeks in advance. The only time I’ve seen a terrorist buy a last minute ticket using cash was in the original Airport movie.