Southwest Airlines
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Southwest Reservation System can’t handle TSA secondary screening
TSA randomly selects people for a secondary screening at the gate, which is out of all airlines control. However, with most airlines assigned seating, this only affects the flight you are selected for the screening for and doesn’t affect your boarding. With Southwest’s check in and reservation system, getting selected for secondary screening means you are in for major issues. Southwest’s well rehearsed response by phone support, check in personnel and gate agents, for the multiple impacts, is that it is not our fault’. That you were selected by the TSA, not Southwest, so you get nothing from Southwest to help rectify the situation of getting a late C group number when you went to all the trouble to check in and your spouse on the same reservation gets A group. It is true that it is TSA for being selected for the extra secondary security screening for the first flight. However, all the issues on subsequent connecting fights are caused by Southwest's reservation system and boarding process. There is no reason not to get assigned your legitimate place in line on the rest of your connecting flights as the TSA screening has nothing to do with them. Even worse then not being able to board with the rest of your party on the reservation on subsequent flights, is losing your TSA Pre Check from paying for Global Entry on the rest of your connecting flights. On international flights you usually need to go through security again after clearing customs. On my recent trip back from Mexico, the rest of my party with TSA Pre Check cleared security in 5 minutes and then waited another 50 minutes for me to finally show up. This is very much Southwest's issue. Other airlines with different reservation systems have none of these issues. There are things that Southwest could have and should have done on my connecting flight. I clearly should have had an A group number as all other folks on the reservation with me did. All the numbers are gone since the Southwest system would not assign my connecting flight boarding position since it wouldn’t assign the 1st flight. However, Southwest lets "special circumstance" folks board after the A group, before the B group. When I asked the gate agent in Miami, Monica V., if there was anything I could do to board at least close to the rest of my party, she parroted the party line that is was TSA’s fault and that there was nothing she could do. When I mentioned boarding after the A’s, she got that hostile look like I was just another low life trouble maker trying to cheat my way onto the plane before my turn. She stated that was ONLY for disabled passengers and my issue was not a Southwest problem. An even better solution is for Southwest to still issue you your boarding position number for your connecting flights and not remove TSA PRE from your connecting flight boarding pass