The four letters you don't want on your plane ticket

Travelling is stressful at the best of times; between airport queues, security checks, and hundreds of other people fighting you to get on the plane you can easily spend more time getting to your flight than being on it.

Aussie travellers flying into, or within the US may have noticed the extra time taken at security, but what you may not realise is that the screening process can be almost doubled because of four little letters.

If you ever see the letters ‘SSSS’ stamped on your boarding pass, you need to know that it stands for ‘Secondary Security Screening Selection’, and that it spells a whole lot of hassle.

Used by the US’s Transportation Security Administration post-9/11, the SSSS stamp means a passenger’s been randomly selected for more thorough security checks for the duration of their transit.

It also often leads to some very disgruntled passengers.

While there’s no official list of reasons as to why some boarding passes come printed with SSSS, many theories are floated online, and TSA sources have alternatively said the process is completely random or determined by a list of criteria.

Life Hacker reports that some reasons could be: “…last-minute flights, international one-way fares, paying for a flight in cash, and travel that originates in a ‘high-risk country’.”

In terms of the process, SSSS passengers will not be able to print boarding passes at home, they will be asked more thorough questions, and queued up for full body scans, a pat down, and a strict identity check.

It might be a TSA system, but Aussie passengers flying to the US can find the letters stamped on a boarding pass printed at home and should allow for extra time.

Many have taken to online forums to complain about the process which is intended for extra security, but adds up to extra travel time.

The reality is there’s not much that can be done once you find the label.

For those who continual find themselves with the label who suspect they might be on a selectee list they can contact the Department Of Security’s Traveller Redress Inquiry Program.

If it’s just a handful of times you get slapped with the label best to allow extra time and grin and bear it because at the end of the day we all want a safer flight.

With additional reporting by Cosmo.

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