If you are searched before every internal flight in the US does it mean you're on the no fly list and what are

Question

the implications?
Recently visited the US twice in 2 months for vacation and was put on "search"...one guy working for Delta said I had a famous name
What are the Yanks playing at?

Answer 1

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker

If you're on the "no fly" list, then you would not be allowed to fly at all. Ted Kennedy was, for a short time, on the "no fly" list. But you may be on another security list. One way to tell is to check your boarding pass; in the lower right hand corner, you may see the letters "SSSS" which mean Selected for Secondary Security Screening. The vast majority of SSSS's are assigned randomly by the ticketing computers; now, random is not really as random as you think (ever notice how sometimes your iPod plays certain songs more than others?) and I will not get into that here, just suffice to say that the same number (passenger) can come up more than once and things are still random.

Anyway... chances are that you had the SSSS randomly put on your boarding passes more than once, and you can confirm this if the SSSS is not there next time you fly in the US. No SSSS on your next flight = you're not on a list anywhere.

Or you could have travel habits that automatically mark you for SSSS, like purchasing tickets last-minute, purchasing one-way trips, purchasing trips that go through many stops (like flying NY to Chicago, spending the night then heading on to Atlanta, then spending the night and off to Miami and etc), changing itineraries partway through, and paying cash. These are considered irregular travel habits and automatically get you an SSSS. I take about 80 flights a year and even got the Travel Clear clearance where they scan your eye in certain airports instead of the normal ID and security, and I still got an SSSS when I had flight problems and bought a one-way ticket right at the airport.

If you get the SSSS on your next trip and you have no irregular travel habits, you can always ask the ticket counter to reprint your boarding pass--- most of the time they do it for you without the SSSS unless you really are on a list somewhere, and if you are on a list they will tell you how to go about being taken off the list.

Asker's Rating:

Asker's Comment:

ty

Answer 2

If you truely have the name of a famous person, they put you on for a check beacause they wanted to make sure you were not using a famous name as an alias to get around the no-fly-list... if you are of middle eastern descent, no offense on my end, you may have been put down for extra checks just for that reason... not fair, but it happens to every nationality...

If your name was on the no-fly-list, you would not have been alowed on the plane, the fact you were allowed to print your ticket alone means that you are not on the no fly list...

Source(s):

Regional Airline Pilot

Answer 3

There are two lists. The no fly list, which means you will never get on a plane in the US. Then there is the can fly list which is people who's names are on the no fly list but aren't the people they don't want to fly so they can fly. (Confusing isn't it!)

Answer 4

Maybe you just look like Cat Stevens.