Flying soon? wanna know if you will be searched?


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Anyone flying sometime soon? heres a cool little tip about being randomly searched at the airport. I was told by someone that when you get your boarding pass at the airport, the computer that prints out the boarding passes randomly insert a code on your pass which means you will be searched. it is 4 S's (SSSS). i didnt beleive it at first but when i came home and looked at my boarding passes i realized he was right.

i flew from LA to Chicago to Mtl. I got searched in Chicago.. in the picture the blue ticket is from chicago where i got searched.

post-7-1073946164.jpg

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I remembered i got this orange paper when i was coming back from Florida about 4 weeks ago. They told me it was because i had a one way ticket, my ticket didnt have those s's tho, only a big orange paper looked like oversized ticket.

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I've never been searched anywhere in europe. When you leave Canada though they search everybody.

A good thing to bring with you would be some white out if you get the SSSS though :D

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Yeah, it's true. I used to work at the airport. These are the people who get searched right before boarding on the plane. Most of it's completely random, and, depending on the checkpoint security company, additional passenger searching might be administered.

It's no secret, though most people don't know about it ;)

Btw, that's how United and its subsidiaries do it (the four S's).

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Hum, good question. Why is the sky blue? :ninja:

Well if you really want to know why the sky is blue... it has to do with the angle of sunlight and the particles in the atmosphere (super simplified version)

LOL

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Suppose these 4 S's may indeed be an indication of a required search in some places (frankly, if so, it's a bit of a stupid security thing likely to be discovered, as may have occurred here).

Depending on various airports, flights, etc., there can certainly also be other random searches that do not make themselves apparent via printing on one's ticket, and the S's may or may not be the indication of why one is chosen for search.

Personally, I've been selected for search several times at various airports, and have not noticed the S's (or any other "warning") on my own boarding passes or anything else.

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Weird. When I was flying home from Hawaii last year after Spring semester, they just did random searches without even looking at your ticket. For example, there was a family of 5 ahead of me, and as we stood in line, they just walked by us and told us which line to get into. There were two lines, one going to the search area, the other going straight to the boarding tunnel. 2 people of the family and myself got picked. They didn't check my ticket until I was already searched (it was a simple shoes, carry-on, 2 questions search).

When I went to Vegas last November, it was the same way, only fewer people were searched. My step-mom had the whole shebang (shoes, suitcase, questions, carry-on) and her ticket wasn't any different. Maybe it's specific airlines? Interesting, nontheless.

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should have known this earlier this day my mom and some relatives just left for pakistan from dc they have to go to J.F.K first. and just moments ago i received a call that my cousin her mom and my mom are being investigated cuz the system showed a difference in my cousins name that from her passport its like a letter diff. i just hope everything goes well and security ppl dont make a big deal out of it. and on top of that their flight was delayed. imagine the wait time and 16+ hrs of fly time.

EDIT

just got the news they are were alright and are onboard.

Edited by ProfessorX
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I just got home from Atlanta - god its nice to be home! :) Atlanta is HECTIC!

actually a very nice airport though for one so large. im always impressed at how smoothly everything flows in there.

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I had my bags searched after leaving Las Vegas one time. We had gone to this shooting range on Flamingo Blvd. to rent some automatic weapons (you can do that in Nevada) and as a souvenir I kept the paper target to show how good my shots were. Anyway, they were in my carry on and the security picked up "gunpowder". That raised flags and I was detained for about ten minutes until they figured it out. That was pre 9/11; I don't want to think of their reaction post 9/11!

Other than that, my problems have been with customs more than just airport security. I got taken into a secure room once that had a camera and a table because the officer found bus tickets in my wallet. They're one square inch in size used to travel on the transit system in my city. I had to take off everything except my underwear and had all my belongings looked through, from my wallet to my bags. I was more scared than embarassed at the time because I used to smoke a lot (not tobacco) and started worrying if maybe I forgot some of it in my bags or something like that. As a Canadian we tend to get this scary view of customs guys and their war on drugs, and I had this vision of me getting ten years in a maximum security prison for bringing a joint across the border. As it turned out, the reason they freaked out about the bus tickets is that they believed that I was trafficking in LSD. Once they had made record of all my ID and stuff they said I could proceed if I left my tickets behind with them. Hmm, come to think about it, the U.S. customs guys still owe me ten bucks for my bus fares!! :p

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