To wonder just how random airport security checks are?

[DifficultSituation19]

Because I seem to get pulled out to be thoroughly searched EVERY BLOODY TIME! You know, get all my belongings out so they can go through things thoroughly and swab them etc. I’ve flown around 10 times in the last 18 months and it literally always happens, whether I’m in England or abroad, whether I’m alone, with my DP, or the DC. Makes no difference. Always get searched while everyone else breezes through.

This has given me a bit of a complex. I don’t THINK I look like a DF (dodgy fucker). I mean, I’m not obviously oozing money or class but I’m generally quite presentable - white (shouldn’t matter but I’ve heard there is ‘racial profiling’), polite, middle class, pushing 40 mother of 2. WHY ME? My boyfriend thinks it’s hilarious. Surely every time can’t be ‘random’?

DP is on 100% for being searched at airports, he has flown 4 times in his life.

He was more pissed the last time, when I went through got beeped, and got a quick frisk and the wand thing, he got his bags searched and swabbed.

I personally think it was because he was carrying DS on the last one.

It can also be how you buy your tickets.

Things like last minute ticketing are more likely to get flagged, even if the ticketing change is due to an airline issue, not self created.

@purpleartichoke how would the security people know how you bought your tickets? At my local airport you self scan your boarding pass, head to the checking points and choose a queue to join. So you may have gone to any one of those half a dozen queues. So at that point how to the security people know who’s who and how their tickets were bought, as surely everyone is mixed up by then?

I am convinced that I look like Pablo Escobars favourite drug mule. Every time I'm stopped, searched and swabbed. It's part of the airport experience for me! shrugs
I'm finding my people here.

There are code markings on some
Of the boarding passes that tell them
To pull you aside. Some searches are determined otherwise, but some are because of those codes.

One of DDs is often randomly selected for swabbing. Started when she was 2. As bossy and determined as she, I don't think she has an evil business empire quite yet.

DH did a lot of traveling with a colleague over the last few months. He was always being pulled over after getting off the plane. Always the same questions. He was from the Caribbean but had the right to live in the UK and travel between UK and some other EU countries.

My DD was 8 at the time and she got searched, she has a normal first and sir name. My DP has been search almost every time we've gone way - he has a name from an other country and a sir name from an other. Don't think they're as random as they say.

They’re not random. I used to travel a lot in my job, and was always pulled aside at one airport only. Never at any other.

My husband laughed the last time we flew together. The Asian security agent sent every white person for a secondary search.

For a period, DH was regularly connecting through a particular airport where he was always pulled aside for extra screening. I told him to start dressing the part of a middle-aged business traveller, and the extra screenings stopped.

I’m the opposite. Every time I fly to Europe, everyone else’s passport gets looked at and I just get waved through. They don’t even take my passport from me.

Me. I’m fat. They need to check the rolls aren’t Semtex. Also I wear head to foot black, with a long scarf but my hair is open. I wear a large, obvious cross. I only take hand luggage. I travel frequently between the UK and Ireland. I travel alone, always.

Actually, I’m beginning to think they’d be lax if they didn’t check.

barryfromclareisfit, you sound like a nun. 😁

They don't know your name when they select you for pre flight security checks - not in UK and Europe at least. You don't show your ID or boarding pass at security. It is triggered by what you are wearing, plus a random selection. For those who always get selected it's probably your watch or jewellery (frisking) or something in your hand luggage (baggage search - usually obvious what item triggered it).
For the customs checks of hold luggage after you get off the plane, they are not random and are definitely triggered partly by country of origin and appearance.
Outside the EU it's different - in dubai I saw every western dressed woman searched whilst every burka clad woman was not!

S1 - ha! Nearly!

I concur with others. I’m sure I’m in the quota of ‘others’ To make it enough to be not racial profiling.

I fly often. Sometimes 7-8 flights per month literally all over the world. Fly to the UK from the Middle East 2-3 times a year. Every single time I get ‘enhanced screened’ with all devices swabbed, extra checks at the gate. Never on flights to elsewhere from the same airport, but for the last 4 years it’s been every flight to the UK. The majority of passengers are middle eastern, Indian or Pakistani origin (I fly with one of the big connecting flight airlines), so as one of the few fat, 5’ 2” blond women, I get screened.

I always get pulled over in russia too, once security realize I’m not Russian. Every time.

It’s definitely NOT random. My dh and one of my twin sons are always searched. We pose no threat to anyone and are law abiding.

I don’t think it’s random.... my cute, bubbly DD6 has been selected for a “random” check every single time we have traveled the last two years. None of us others have ever been chosen. She is really good at how to stand in those machines at Gatwick now....

Me and my DM got pulled into a side room and our bags swabbed by anti-terrorism on both outward and return flights recently within the UK. The first time was scary but the second time we just laughed and told the security guy who seemed surprised.

I also always used to set off the alarm when walking through the security scanner, but a security guard told me that can happen if you sway slightly when walking through. Since then I’ve concentrated really hard on walking straight (even when wielding wriggly DS) and haven’t set it off

I'm a white middle-aged woman. I figure I always get selected for the explosive testing (and I always, always do) to balance out the other more...err 'profiled' searches - ie to make the searches look like they are random.

Dmil has had a lot of operations and has a lot of metal in her body. We travelled with her in France this summer and i really felt for her with the huge amounts of checks and talking they did. Apparently dsil always gets pulled in too. One of my ds(11) got pulled aside as instead of putting something on the tray he kept it in his hand and it would put me off flying. As soon as the beeper went off he had a group of about 5 people surround him, two army, all trying to do the 'hi nice little boy,' thing and he looked terrified

My DP got pulled recently for a trainer swab and unbeknownst to me at the time they chattily told him "it's a random one, we would have picked her [as in me] but we're not allowed to ask expectant mothers". Which is weird to start with but while this was going on, in the next lane my shoes had set off the scanner and they just had me take them off. I thought that was really odd - what's trainers got to do with pregnancy and if that's the rules why ask me to remove them?!

I don't think that is Islamophobia Bitchy. Anyone flying from a country like Syria is going to be subject to extra security checks.

I am always picked and searched. Middle aged/middle class/well spoken/white/boring name.

I don't really mind it.

#benefitofthedoubt# I'm not in the UK. Spirits are def. dearer where I live although when travelling to NSW a few years back, the bottle of Baileys I bought in Costco was cheaper than duty free flying out... :)

benefitofthedoubt ^ my # was meant to be *