A few years ago, I was sitting at my desk, when Outlook pinged up a reminder.

BA online check-in open for Orlando flight. Booking ref SB1T6.

I had set a reminder 24 hours in advance of my flight, so I could choose my seat. I was travelling to Orlando with a colleague of mine, for a conference. Almost certainly one with garish carpets.

Opening the BA online check-in page, I was annoyed that it refused to check me in. I tried again. Nope. “Bloody websites” was my first reaction. But I guess I could have noted down the wrong booking reference, and so I pulled up the booking confirmation email.

Panic. The flight had just departed, 10 minutes ago.

Realisation: I am an idiot

Stupidly, some months earlier when booking the flight, I put the Outlook reminder on the wrong day, and shared that with my colleague. Idiot idiot idiot. Right, first things first: call the travel agent.

The travel agent explained that the tickets for me and my colleague were, of course, non-refundable. We’d have to buy full-price new tickets. I had no choice. I gave my card details, and purchased two expensive, last-minute tickets, exactly 24 hours after the original ones. Then I rang my colleague, we laughed/cried, and agreed to meet at the airport tomorrow morning.

TSA weirdness

The flight was fine – it was only when we landed in Orlando that things began to get weird. He and I went through the border control checks in separate lines. Usually, this is just boring. However, the TSA officer checked my passport number against a printed list he had tacked up next to his desk (that didn’t feel good), wrote “SSSS” in black on my arrival documents, and accompanied me to the baggage carousel. After I retrieved my bag under his gaze, I was sat in a separate area of the arrivals hall. My colleague was there too. Our bags were X-rayed, and then we were accompanied to another room.

At this point, I’ll tell you that my colleague is an adult convert to Islam, and has an Islamic name. Let’s call him Mohamed, although that’s not his real name.

Mohamed and I each had a TSA officer dealing with us. We were about 5 metres apart, I guess. Judging from what was going on on his side of the room, it felt like we were both undergoing the same process, but he was a few minutes ahead.

I was asked to open my bags, and the TSA officer searched, quite thoroughly, through my clothes, conference brochures, laptop, etc. While he searched, I listened to Mohamed’s officer starting a long series of questions. The officer was reading from a clipboard. He asked for Mohamed’s full name. Had he ever changed his name? (Yes.) What educational qualifications did he have? What were his parents’ full names? What were their qualifications, and from which countries?

My bag search continued.

But what of Mohamed’s address? Did he own or rent his current house? (Rent.) What was the full address? What about the postcode? Mohamed said his postcode was “OX2 5BT.”

TSA Officer: What was that? OX2 5DB?

Mohamed: No, OX2 5BT – Five Bravo Tango

TSA Officer: Oh, so you know the military alphabet. Have you ever done any military training?

Mohamed: No. It’s not the military alphabet, it’s used in loads of places!

TSA Officer: It is used mostly by the military. Have you ever been in the Military in the UK?

Mohamed: No.

TSA Officer: What about in other countries? Have you ever fought in other countries?

Mohadem: No

My TSA Officer was still searching my bags. Mohamed’s questioning continued, turning now to the countries he had visited.

TSA Officer: Have you been to Pakistan?

Mohamed: Yes.

TSA Officer: Why did you go to Pakistan?

Mohamed: My sister runs a charity there, and I went to visit her.

TSA Officer: Did you do any military training in Pakistan?

Mohamed: No.

TSA Officer: But you know the military alphabet – you mentioned it earlier. You did do military training, didn’t you?

Mohamed: No, I haven’t done any military training.

TSA Office: Have you ever shot a gun?

Mohamed: No.

(I find it ironic, that in a country with a very high proportion of gun ownership, my colleague was asked in an accusatory manner, whether he had shot a gun.)

Double-standards

My bag search complete, my TSA Office started on the questions, in the same order as for Mohamed. He read from his clipboard. What was my full name? Had I ever changed my name? (No.) What educational qualifications did I have? I started listing them, and as he struggled to write them accurately, something unexpected happened. He said:

Here, can you just write the answers in yourself? It will save a lot of time.

And handed me the clipboard. I was astounded. After the interminable grilling they gave to Mohamed, I was allowed to just complete the information myself? No comebacks, no checks, no argument? No ability to prove or disprove that I can recite the entire phonetic alphabet courtesy of having a father who was an air traffic controller?

We were allowed to continue our journey. Mohamed shrugged the whole thing off. “I look Pakistani, I have a Pakistani name, that’s just what happens.” In itself, that is outrageous.

SSSS

I later discovered that SSSS means “Secondary Security Screening Selection.” I still live with the ‘SSSS’ treatment. Every single time I exit the UK en route to the USA, I am pulled aside by the UK border agency staff and frisked. The contents of my hand luggage are searched carefully. I can tell it’s going to happen – my boarding pass always has ‘SSSS’ on it. This is one from a few weeks back:

I can only assume that Mohamed and I were the subject of close personal attention because of my stupidity in forgetting to catch our flights, and travelling exactly 24 hours later. With a person with an Islamic name.

The disparity in our treatment was shocking, unwelcome, and grossly unfair.

No anger

A small, closing snippet. At the time, I was running a small business with my business partner. Money was tight, and we really couldn’t afford stupid mistakes like this. Once off the phone with the travel agent and then Mohamed, I called my partner and explained my mistake. He didn’t get mad. “One day”, he said “when I make a stupid mistake which costs us thousands of pounds, you can remember today. And then we’ll be even.” What a level-headed, sage-like way to handle it. But that was nearly a decade ago, and he hasn’t made a serious mistake yet.