Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Gateside by TSA Precheck

tsa.gov

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 64 posts

Re: Gateside by TSA Precheck

#51

Post by AlotOfReading »

brookst wrote: post #43
AlotOfReading wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is ensuring checked bags have boarded passengers not also theater? Airlines openly sell unattended cargo space on passenger flights and it's screened the same way as checked luggage.

Do you get to specify the plane it goes on? Can you purchase it untraceable, the way you can you a plane ticket with a prepaid card, check in and check luggage without any ID?

You can constrain the plane it goes on because there's only a small number of flights between city pairs with a given carrier.

You also can't buy a plane ticket for an anonymous person. It has to be for a legal person, which the government is informed of before the flight takes place. That ID is attached to the luggage when it's checked, which is how they can implement bag retrieval when the passenger doesn't board. I'm sure there's an airline somewhere out there accepting checked bags without tickets or ID, but it's not supposed to be allowed.

For air cargo, someone provides an ID, but it's usually the shipper or some other person with no real involvement beyond working in the supply chain. There's a chain of check boxes that says "I received this from an entity I have a legitimate business relationship with" and that's good enough in practice.

Re: Gateside by TSA Precheck

#52

Post by grishka »

lokar wrote: post #17
grishka wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ensuring checked bags have boarded passengers You mean you used to be able to just send a bag without flying yourself, and have someone else pick it up at the destination airport? Was this something that people did intentionally or did it happen accidentally?

You could check in, check your bags, and then walk out. They would not remove the bag from the plane.

Yeah, I meant doing that intentionally to send something to someone else for the cost of flight without having to wait days for shipping. Could you even get to the baggage claim area of an airport pre-9/11 without having flown into it?

Re: Gateside by TSA Precheck

#53

Post by pstuart »

xyzelement wrote: post #12
pstuart wrote: post #4

I just had to pay to renew my TSA PreCheck. Because why? They already know my threat risk (zero), and in paying them again nothing changed except they took more money from me.

Allegedly there's an actual re-evaluation during the renewal. For example if you start showing up on terrorist watchlists your next renewal might not go through. I think this is kinda true because my wife was involved in a customs incident and then was unable to renew pre check for a bunch of years, thought that was never given as a reason.

Why should the re-evaluation happen just at renewal? I'm assuming that whatever threat assessment systems they use are updating as relevant data comes in.

They are tracking each and every one of us already, it's just a scam. Of course the bigger scam is TSA as a whole -- security theater at $11B per year.

Of course none of this matters for the elite because they just go to their private jets and don't have to deal with any of the indignities we human cattle go through.

Re: Gateside by TSA Precheck

#54

Post by dlcarrier »

lokar wrote: post #40
lokar wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of the post 9-11 measures other then: - securing the cockpit - training staff to resist hijacking - ensuring checked bags have boarded passengers Are worthless theater. But, if you don’t accept that, and believe that more physical passenger screening is important, adjusting the level of screening based on a per-passenger threat assessment seems reasonable.

I should add, two other items that I think were added in this time period, which are not security related, but IMO are good are: - seriously, you need to follow the instructions of the staff on board - don't get (very) drunk before or after boarding, don't bring and drink your own alcohol

Fun fact: It's expressly illegal to move around the cabin when the seatbelt sign is on while taxiing, but not when in the air.

Turbulence is probably the leading cause of injuries and deaths from modern air travel, but taxiing incidents at extremely rare and pretty much never result in injuries.

Re: Gateside by TSA Precheck

#55

Post by unsnap_biceps »

YZF wrote: post #33
unsnap_biceps wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that the case today? They're loading the baggage while people board and they don't hold the bag until you get your ticket scanned in.

If the owner of a bag does not board the bag is removed.

I've never heard of this happening, and I'm skeptical. I fly a decent amount and my luggage gets misplaced likely in the low percents (more than 1%, less than 5%). I struggle to believe they'll be aware enough to unload a full cargo compartment.

But I could be wrong. Maybe it's just rare enough that I haven't run into it. I would expect it would delay the flight by a noticeable amount. And it would be fairly obvious that they're unloading luggage and then reloading it. It's not like they can just send someone in to climb around and find it. They pack them in tight.

Re: Gateside by TSA Precheck

#56

Post by grishka »

unsnap_biceps wrote: post #29
lokar wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could check in, check your bags, and then walk out. They would not remove the bag from the plane.

Isn't that the case today? They're loading the baggage while people board and they don't hold the bag until you get your ticket scanned in.

I've always had the impression that they don't start loading the bags until after the gate is closed.

Re: Gateside by TSA Precheck

#57

Post by clwncr »

grishka wrote: post #52
lokar wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could check in, check your bags, and then walk out. They would not remove the bag from the plane.

Yeah, I meant doing that intentionally to send something to someone else for the cost of flight without having to wait days for shipping. Could you even get to the baggage claim area of an airport pre-9/11 without having flown into it?

> I meant doing that intentionally to send something to someone else

Someone told me they'd done that in the 70s. In their case, they were planning to travel and bring along stuff that belonged to a friend at their destination. At the last minute, they couldn't make the trip and they decided the easiest solution was to check the bags and scurry out of the airport. They were worried the airline would deny a refund, but they got their money back just fine.

Baggage claim was no problem. Anybody could (and mostly still can) access it. I remember a time where they kind of corralled it all in and checked your bag tag and stub to make sure you weren't wandering off with someone else's luggage. That was a chaotic, ineffective, and short-lived effort.

Re: Gateside by TSA Precheck

#58

Post by firesteelrain »

unsnap_biceps wrote: post #31
firesteelrain wrote: post #19

This is great. But airports are super busy and crowded these days. Imagine all the extra people if everyone took advantage of this I don’t remember how it looked back in the day when you didn’t need Gateside.

It's obnoxious enough to go through security and meet someone at their gate that for major airports, it was only done for picking up kids or old folks. It's not going to move the needle on how crowded it feels. for smaller airports, it won't matter, my local airport has four gates, the terminal is maybe 300 feet end to end, so everyone currently waits outside of security, but it's like 10-20 folks. the few that make…

Yea I was thinking the major airports like Atlanta, Orlando, Denver, etc that are usually slammed

Re: Gateside by TSA Precheck

#60

Post by flyingshelf »

chronc7403 wrote: post #32
flyingshelf wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW your bags may still occasionally travel without you (but you still have to board A flight)

> FWIW your bags may still occasionally travel without you (but you still have to board A flight) This is false. If you check into the airport early (4+ hours) your bag may go on an earlier flight without you. And you can decide not to board your original flight.

I wouldn't say false especially when quoting the whole sentence. What you suggest is so rare (worldwide) it might as well be false. It's such a bad idea for the airline to ship your bags before the passenger makes it onto the plane.
Post reply on HN