After going through a ringer of horror with three different airlines on Friday, Sebastien and his family retreated home to try again the next day. On Saturday, he and his brood were “selectees” earmarked for special detention by TSA at the security checkpoint. Later, he noticed his ticket had “SSSS” printed in the lower right-hand corner. His return ticket, where he had no special inspeciton, had no such S’s.

“After talking to a few other travelers,” he writes, “I came to realize that there’s a high possibility that airline tickets (or boarding passes) are printed with an “S” or a number of “S”‘s if a passenger or a party of passengers is going to be taken out of line by the TSA for a full luggage inspection and pat down. The number of S’s depends on how many people are in a party.”

What will happen as this info spreads? Will we see people arguing at the ticket counter to get the scarlet letters removed? Will people swap tickets and barter items to get out of the cavity search? Will the statistical analysis of an independent third-party firm find that the SSS’s are less likely to appear on first-class tickets?

Hopefully, in the midst of the ensuing confusion, no bombs or snakes get smuggled aboard.

Previously: Trifecta of Crappy Airplane Stories

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