Airline Checkpoint Frustations
 

http://www.usatoday.com/travel/fligh...int-woes_x.htm

A while back I read about a company that had set up kiosks outside security at several airports where you could pay to have such items mailed home if you realized it before they were found by security - never actually seen one of these, though.

Article also speaks of the shoe removal thing. Last summer, after getting no straight answer pre-flight about whether or not I had to remove my shoes, I just didn't. Have been on about 8 flights since then and never have removed my shoes and no one has done or said anything about it. But I did notice almost everyone else was automatically remving their shoes.

There's a very funny lady checker at Boston who, when she called me aside told me I had been chosen "Queen for a Day."

It's always a crapshoot what's going to set off the alarms. Re the shoes, I see what they're asking of the passengers in front of me before automatically taking off my shoes.

I really loathe Miami's checkpoints. Several times I've had agents I could NOT understand a word they were saying (extremely heavy Spanish accents) & since I'm usually in a hurry for a connection I'm always pulled aside for a thorough search there.

I don't take the shoes off unless asked to. They don't set off the alarm.

Once before boarding AA the employee asked everybody in line to remove their shoes as he wanted to make sure we all have matching socks :)

Look, and I want to be very careful about this, 99% of this nonsense is just that nonsense. Unfortunately we live in a world where we have sickos and wackos and pure vermin who, if they really want to do something, will be able to figure out a way to do it. Not that I object to normal screening...send my carry on's through metal detectors and if something trips the alarm, let them go through it. That's fine

But what I do resent are the "random" searches where having passed through securityu say at Heathrow which does a very good job, they then select passengers to do it again...once they go through your stuff, they should tag the stuff and not subject you to this humiliating garbage which has never picked up anybody...but my feeling is they have to look like they're doing something and of course the mentality of some is personal liberties don't matter anymore and like lambs being led to the slaughter, we simply comply (not that we have any choice) but to me, it is unnecessary and insulting (the random searches that is)...insulting say to Heathrow security and to all of us.

I totally agree.

I appreciate the option of not having to remove my shoes and frequently choose to keep them on. Just have to wait two or three minutes for the swab check. Haven't been wanded in those cases.

Only once has the TSA given me a hard time, at Dulles airport where I was told that it would take a half hour to get it done.

Random searches are a good thing. The thorough search can't be done for everybody yet the normal searches aren't thorough enough. If only the normal search is done then a terrorist will figure out how to beat it. But the possibility of a thorough search will prevent some attempts.

Random searches are fine. That's a legitimate form of security.

What's absurd is the ambiguity when it comes to shoes. You can tell people you need to take off all footwear, or you tell people you don't need to take off. That's fine. It's even fine if you say when a TSA agent asks you to take off shoes, you take off. I can also accept that.

But what's <b>ridiculous</b> is this &quot;we <b>suggest/recommend/encourage</b> you to take off your shoes&quot; crap. What the heck is that. Why don't you tell the cops to tell a suspect &quot;We suggest you put down your gun&quot;? Or tell a driver &quot;We highly recommend you show me your driver's license&quot;?

I've written about this at length on this forum some time ago.

and of course in europe you don't need to remove shoes at all

rkkwan, what the heck it is is the TSA's odd way of <u>asking</u> you to take off your shoes. Maybe you covered this in your other post, I didn't see it. My take on it is that they could say: remove your shoes or you will be subject to secondary screening. But I think that invites discussion, which they don't want, and which might lead to them having to do more secondary screening. The way they say it is more like a &quot;take off your shoes ... or else!&quot;. Since I am being asked to make a choice, I choose the one that suits me at the moment. In either case, my shoes and I will be analyzed.

The orders of a police officer are a whole different matter.

the ambiguity of their statement tends to prevent further discussion, doesn't it?

BTW, I've since worn sandals when traveling, and I don't take them off. I'm so tired of this stupid TSA crap.

Mr. W has the right idea, with respect to TSA language. And you may be sick of this &quot;crap&quot; Rkkwan, but none of you knows what type of intelligence is being gathered and analyzed behind the scenes-i.e., what the USG knows about terrorist M.O.s, what is going on in the terrorist world at any given point in time, attempts against civil aviation worldwide, attempts to infiltrate the system. You may THINK you know, but that's not the same as knowing. Nor should you.

We've not had any serious problems since 9/11-and the terrorist attacks have been surface transportation related, i.e., subways and trains-you think that is just mere coincidence? You think the TSA isn't over there in Spain and India checking out their airports? They are.

Do you know about the explosive trace detection machines? Do you know why they are in use? Had we had these at CDG back in Dec. 2001, Richard Reid would never have been allowed to get on an aircraft-because the machines are that sensitive that they would have picked up the explosives residue that was all over his PERSON-which means that terrorists are now going around traditional methods of introducing explosives in checked baggage in favor of the &quot;carry-on bomb.&quot;

And you're never going to know definitively whether or not to take your shoes off at any given airport checkpoint. If everyone knows exactly what is expected of them at the checkpoint, if the USG is not constantly employing a variety of different security measures to keep the bad guys off balance, then they would hardly be carrying out their mandate to &quot;protect persons and property traveling in transportation from acts of air piracy and other criminal acts&quot; (to quote the statute) now would they?

They do a very diligent job.

Girlpytravel - I am perfectly fine with TSA randomly asking people to take off their shoes, or other checks.

Just tell me clearly if I need to take off my shoes or not. Is it really that hard? They can do it random, they can based that on agent discreption, they can use sophisicated profiling - racial or otherwise. <b>I do not care.</b> Just tell me off or on <b>when</b> I get to the checkpoint, not before. Please understand what I'm saying before criticizing me.

Is there any government agent anywhere in the world that &quot;suggests&quot; you to do something? Does IRS &quot;suggest&quot; me to pay my taxes? Does the passport control &quot;suggest&quot; me to show them my passport?

Rkkwan-there was a policy decision made about the shoe issue, and how to present it to the public-it was to &quot;suggest&quot;-meaning, that if they want you to take your shoes off, they will &quot;suggest&quot; that you do that, thereby psychologically gaining an advantage over the pax by not &quot;ordering&quot; you to do it-and nominally leaving it to the pax's discretion. And at those airports, on any given day, where they don't care if you take your shoes off or not, they will say nothing more to you other than the suggestion-which means that a signficant sample will still take the shoes off, regardless, and there will be those who will not, and can still pass through. The security objective at these airports has thus been achieved, without issuing an order-no order=better customer service.


BUT, there will be those airports where they WILL want shoes off-everyone. You don't get to know that in advance-but if they &quot;suggest&quot; you do-and you don't, then they will tell you you cannot pass without removal.

It's a perfectly rational aviation security measure to me.

Girlspytravel - Okay, I think I understand what you're saying, after your good explanation.

But I do not agree that's &quot;better customer service&quot;. I think it's horrible, and it's crap to me. However, that's an opinion, and I can respect this psychological warfare thing as you explain to me about how they're getting people to take off their shoes without asking or ordering. Still, I highly question how effective it is to stop real terrorists.

Anyways, personally, I'm not going to take that crap whenever possible, so I'm wearing sandals unless I'm going to very cold places.

That's okay, you can question security procedures-it's fertile ground for debate-and the USG is not immune to customer complaints or arguments about the efficaciousness of particular security measures-you will have noticed that some have come, and then gone.

I will say though, that many many people, those in the USG as well, who thought that the 6 questions that were asked of pax at one time were, &quot;stupid questions&quot; For the most part, those questions have been eliminated.

Except that the public still has no idea how effective that measure really was (and in some contexts, still is) in detecting and thwarting criminal acts against aviation.

No one has personally &quot;suggested&quot; to me that I remove my shoes in the times I have traveled in past 12 months. If they did, I would remove them - while chipping away at our civil liberties for questionable gain really bothers me, I don't think the time and place for me to make that point would be with a TSA security person.

I just wish they had more chairs in convenient places for passengers to put their shoes back on without hopping on one foot while blocking traffic.

I still dislike having to walk barefoot where tons of other people have just done the same. :-L

And I really loathe that my birthday is 9/11.

TSA is nothing but a total waste of money, a joke, infact it's the perfect example of a government agency that went from a good intention to a disaster.

Lately GAO has been reporting that in spite of the agency's $6B a year budget, as opposed to ~$660M for private screeners before 9/11, the agency has a failure record of almost double that of the private screeners when it comes to finding test weapons, bombs, etc....but at least they accomplished one goal, Americans walking on dirty floors and carpets without their shoes......Thank You TSA!

Members of Congress from both parties are starting to really ask questions of what exactly has the agency done for all the money spent?

other than harass and inconvinience the average Americans during their travels....

It's time to admit the failure and close down this agency. The sooner the better.

And here's what gets to me...I referred to what happens at Heathrow...the flights to the United States are the only ones who have the random checks at the gate..the other airlines seem to trust Heathrow security to do a good job and there have been no incidents coming out of Heathrow...so why do we Americans and those flying to our country have to subject to these humiliating (and they are humiliating) random checks and be wanded and told to take everything out of their pockets and see these geniuses go through their wallets, all their hand luggage, make them turn on their mobile phones, make them turn on their cameras and all that when if there was a problem, it would be picked up at the general check.

If somebody can explain to me how this shows what great hosts our country is or how this enhances security (in other words are they saying they don't trust Heathrow security; the other airlines do).

And are conditioned reflex now..it's okay; so what if we infringe on people's dignity.

(Incidentally Heathrow security does not require removal of one's shoes.)

The times that I have gone through security wearing my shoes it was no big thing. The lines were short (at SNA and at JFK jetblue) and there were TSA people standing around, so why not? They didn't mind. At other times/places when it is really busy, I will take off my shoes, no problem.

Taking off my shoes inconveniences me. Not taking off my shoes did not inconvenience any other passenger. There is no issue of inconveniencing the government employee because it is actually a part of their job. Making an idle TSA employee actually do some work is a good thing.

Our local SF station ABC,( www. abc7news.com) Michael Finney who is the consumer reporter has had quite an article regarding shoe removal at airports. Evidently one can pick up horrible bacterial and/or viruses on ones feet when walking on the floor at an airport either barefoot or in just ones socks, and medical test has proved that it is a problem. People have ended up with feet infections, warts etc. And when one goes to the doctor the doctor does not know to ask &quot;have you flown on an airline recently?&quot;.

IMHO I think the best thing to do regardless of the weather is to wear a very thin sole flipflop until you get through security. One that does not have any metal in it of course. And than once past security put on whatever shoes/socks you want to fly in (have them in your carryone of course) and put the flipflops in a ziploc bag and put them in your carryon. Flipflops are always good to have instead of slippers while on a trip.

Here are the URLs for the local SF televised report and the follow-up. Yikes! I'm carrying my flip-flops from now on!

http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?sec...amp;id=4378146

http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?
section=7on_your_side&amp;id=4385904

Maybe they should post a sign like the &quot;open, closed&quot; signs in stores. They can flip it to whatever side they desire that day &quot;shoes on, shoes off&quot;. Then we would know whether THAT day we need to take them off!

I just wish they would make up their minds and all the airports would come to an agreement as to shoes &quot;off or on&quot; (well, and everything else!).

My Reeboks are a pain to lace up but they sure are comfy and good for running to catch a connection. However, I always feel like a convict if I leave my shoes on - I never know what I am supposed to do. Also, don't you hate when you leave them on only to find you have to take them off, you are holding up the like, and everyone is giving you dirty looks.

LvSun, every since 911 I have worn loafers when I fly. Easier to take off and to get back on. But the ABC7 report by Michael Finney (a very respected consumer reporter) freaked me out because evidently you can pick up &quot;crud&quot; on your feet through your socks, sigh. So I guess in the future I will put on very thin flipflops before going through security and than put on whatever shoes I want to wear on the plan after going through security.

I wonder if this is how I got a staph infection on my foot a week after returning from London. . .

I usually don't mind whatever security checks are required. But last week going through Heathrow I was disgusted when I saw the agent forcing a women to make her baby &quot;walk&quot; through the screening device alone.

This was a baby about 11 or 12 months old who couldn't walk on her own, her mom held her hand on one side of the screener and she was expected to walk through to the agent/stranger holding her other hand on the other side.

This baby was terrified, she was screaming trying to hold on to her mom, and the agent was saying no you cannot carry her through, she has to go through on her own.

Now that was not only ridiculous, but cruel. What difference would it make to go through in her mom's arms? If there was something in her diaper, the screening device would have found it either way.

The main reason you have to take off your shoes is that most shoes have a metal strip in them that helps keep the shape from the heal to the toe. This is what sets off the detector. I have no problem taking off my shoes or doing the random searches. It makes me feel better knowing &quot;something&quot; is being done.
As for the checks being nonsense, Just because the TSA doesn't advertise when they catch people with bad things on them, doesn't mean it doesn't happen. My husband is in the airline industry and gets briefed when things like this happen so he can be on the look out for it himself. The tsa has a complicated formula that they use when picking people for screening. They check for folks with the same profiles the terrorists used (last minute tickets, one way tickets)for one thing as well as others that I am not aware of. This nonsense does have a point behind it, so just go with the flow and know that you are a little safet thanks to what these folks ask you to put up with.

Well I certainly do not want to put up with a bacterial infection from having to take off my shoes. And I wonder if the bad baceterial infection I got on my foot after flying home from Atlanta wasn't from the airport floor. I believe in the future I will keep my shoes on and they can check them out while I sit down (I had this happen at PDX) and they can wand me etc. as I certainly have nothing to hide.

But the metal in shoes can be detected by the walk thru scanner, monorailgold. It used to be that you had a choice of keeping the shoes on if you were not going to set off the metal detector (e.g. Merrell mocs).

Now, if you go walk thru with your no-metal shoes and don't beep then they swab your shoes to check for chemicals that are used in explosives.

But the shoes that are going thru the belt scanner are not being swabbed!

They reason I think that they want everybody take off their shoes is simply to keep the line moving. Otherwise, there would be people with shoe-metal walking thru, then coming back and taking off their belt, and their ring, and pulling out their fillings, and then walking back thru and setting off the detector because of their shoe-metal. All of that takes time.

If you have trouble with the sanitary issues involving taking off your shoes at the screening area, do like I do and bring a pair of sockies to put on. The shoes come off and go in the machine to be screened and my sockies go on until I am on the other side. I do this every time and have faced no delays (or bacterial infections).

Mr. W., they don't always swab your shoes if you don't take them off, they may, but not always. The process is intended to be random.

But it is preferable to simply take you shoes off, because it does take up less &quot;queue&quot; time, as it's called, than if you don't take off shoes, and they call you back to do a secondary screening.

Regarding the shoes/no shoes issue:

A TSA officer told me that they recommend/suggest/encourage shoe removal based upon the thickness of the sole. If the shoes do not alarm, a passenger can have them swabbed instead of taking them off. So basically, if the shoes have metal in them, they come off. If no metal, but thicker soles: remove and x-ray, or leave on and get swabbed (which usually takes less than a minute). I have asked other TSA officers about this and it seems to be the rule of thumb.

If you look at this post now, all this griping about hand-wanding of shoes seems more than a little frivolous, in light of current events, no?

NO

No. I don't see a connection.

AA &amp; rkk you are kidding right?!

AAFF and I are complaining about procedure that makes little sense and bureacracy. Not about the need for effective screening.

As we can see clearly today, intelligence and police work is what saves us. Not screening.

And I can't understand how highly publicized increased measures in screening AFTER they're already foiled the plot is going to make us safer today or tomorrow.

Do you really think wrecking the airline industry and disrupting tens of thousands of flyers right in the height of summer travel season is making us safer? I don't think so.

Again, I'm all for <b>effective</b> screening, with whatever techniques (racial profiling, total random checks, screening of traveler's names, whatever you name it). I just don't see TSA's doing that, for whatever political, budgetary or institutional reasons.

The screening does work. The strict guidelines that the security now requires continues to make it more difficult for terrorists to come up with ideas. This most recent plot tried to take advantage of the one remaining area that sailed clearly through security...liquids. The terrorists know weapons, shoes, bomb residue, knives, blades, etc are off limits, so they continue to look for more opportunistic ways. This time liquids/gels. Next who knows? It's the world we live in.