It is advisable to buckle up if you spot “SSSS” printed on your boarding pass. The dreaded designation stands for Secondary Security Screening Selection, and it means your airport security experience is about to get a lot more intense. As you’re tagged for SSSS, you’ll have to undergo an extra screening, and it can add anywhere from some minutes to half an hour — or more — to the whole security process. Below’s everything you need to know about SSSS.
SSSS (Secondary Security Screening Selection) is a designation by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) that flags passengers for extra security screening. SSSS can happen on any flight to, from, or within the United States, including inbound international flights.
In case you spot those four letters on your boarding pass, you may be taken aside by a TSA officer during the regular airport security process and subjected to additional searches, whether of your bag or your person.
Also, you could be taken aside during the boarding process, where an agent will ask you to unpack your personal item and carry-on bag for a thorough manual search. Your electronics might be swabbed and tested (be prepared to remove them from their cases), and you might also be patted down.
In general, these processes can take anywhere from a few minutes to half an hour or more.
There’s no published information about who gets selected for SSSS, which is intended to thwart any efforts to get around security. Anecdotally, it seems that SSSS is given to passengers with more unusual travel patterns, such as one-way international tickets or travel to destinations deemed high-risk by the U.S., such as Afghanistan or Russia. Sometimes, traveling to a “high-risk” country repeatedly could flag you in the system, even if you’re just going to visit family. It’s also very likely that TSA doles out the SSSS designation randomly.
One sign that you’ve been selected is that you won’t be able to check in online — you’ll receive a message via your airline’s app or website that you’ll need to check in with an agent at the airport. Of course, there could be a variety of reasons for this, but it’s definitely one sign you might need to prepare for additional screening.
In case SSSS appears on your boarding pass regularly, you can apply to the Department of Homeland Security’s Traveler Redress Inquiry Program (TRIP). Through the program, the department will review your case, investigate why you keep getting selected for additional screenings, and notify you of any developments. If your application is successful, you’ll be given a redress number in order to add to all your airline bookings, which could reduce the number of issues you face at airport security.
Being tagged with SSSS is not the only reason you might be forced to undergo extra security measures, such as pat-downs, hand swabs, and bag searches. The most common reason you’ll be selected is that a TSA agent sees something they’re unsure about during the bag-scanning process. At that point, your bag will be pulled aside and searched manually.
Additionally, you can be randomly selected for secondary screening at any point during the security process — but most commonly when you walk through the body scanner or metal detector. In many cases, you may have your palms or electronic devices swabbed for explosives, or you may have to undergo a pat-down (either in public or in a private room).
The next reason you may be selected is if TSA thinks you’re behaving suspiciously. “This is fairly uncommon, but if a passenger is behaving in a suspicious manner, the TSA might ask them some questions to ascertain why they are behaving that way,” says Dan Bubb, a professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and a former airline pilot. “Sometimes, that behavior can be connected to drug smuggling. So, airline personnel and TSA agents are highly trained to spot potential concerns in order to keep air traveling public safe.”
