Air travel to Boston kilt advice

[brewerpaul]

Well Im back in one piece and had a pleasant experience in general. Thanks everyone for your input. Headed to Boston via Southwest from Lambert in St Louis. Got some looks and compliments before even getting to the TSA area. Of course the buckles set everything off so it was off to pat down. Had a very nice gentleman of colour explain what he needed to do and how, ask if i wanted private screening and then he proceeded to do a very professional job. I opted for public pat down, what do I have to hide, and asked if he gets kilted men often. He said no but also said he used to train the screeners and kilted men were included in earlier years training. He said they dont do it anymore.

Boston was great, and cool temp wise. Again alot of nice looks and compliments from men and lovely ladies too. Walked with a friend from down town to The Haven JP, which was at least 5+ miles only to find they were closing. The owner was thrilled I had a kilt on and served up some oat cakes, a glass of white wine for my friend and a Bellhaven Scottish for me. He said he had to get his daughter and trusted us not to go behind the bar. So off he went after a handshake and compliment again on the Blackwatch wool I had on. THe power of the kilt indeed, never have I had a barkeep trust me to sit and enjoy my brew as he left the place.

Dinner that night was Italian so dressed up a bit, though not formal. Photo below. Brought my 8Yd Hamilton Grey PV, burgundy kilt hose, hand made garter ties, nubuck brown wingtips, 1800s Rutledge shirt, argyle sweater in spruce, gray and burgundy, and Mojo leather sporran. Opted to let the collar open on the shirt after taking the photo. Again quite a few compliments. Found a bottle of Edradour 10 YR scotch in a spirits store and shared one of my favorite scotches with some friends.



Next day was a day of listening about pace makers and heart failure so donned my Blackwatch again, wingtips, brown tweed with blue top kilt/hunting hose, Mojo sporran and brown belt and khaki X-Officio shirt. Was greeted while checking in by a very lovely young lady who said she really liked the outfit and had many more approvals from men and women both. The trip home was equally easy with a short patdown as usual. I did have a first though, a 2-3 year old girl told her lovely young(twenties) mother if I was wearing a dress. I had to smile at that and ask if she had ever seen a man kilted. The young lass said no and explained to her daughter I had a kilt on.

Travel, as everyone here has said, was very comfortable in a kilt. I opted to be polite and save being regimental for when I was in Boston. People, TSA included, were polite and approving. Guess Ive no more reason to wear jeans or any other such constricting clothing on a plane ever again. And it was great to have so many lovely ladies and approving men compliment the kilt, including the little girl asking if I was in a dress

[Deirachel]

Oh, I forgot to answer a few things brought up earlier.

About secondary screening:

There are a few reasons a person is required to go through secondary screening. I can't list all of them due to the sensitive nature of the rules, but I can say three primary reasons: a.) you've been preselected by the computers, b.) you set off the machine (there is NO discretion allowed to the screeners, even when it is obvious what set off the machine, i.e. if x happens, then y is REQUIRED to happen, I know one guy that was fired on the spot for making this mistake: the man was through the walkthrough, but not past him, and he stopped the line so people could get out the way. His own watch set off the walkthrough, but because the guy wasn't past him the guy was required to go to handwanding. It was a FAA tester, so there was no "defense" really allowed), c.) you get randomly chosen by the screener (at the walk-through or on the bag check).

Random screening is, officially, as a "just in case" check on the primary machine, i.e. make sure it's working throughout the day. Reality, it's busy work for the screeners. You need X numbers of people on a checkpoint lane to cover all the stations (walkthrough, x-ray, bag, people)... and, unfortunately, some people don't like government employees "just standing around" waiting to handle the situation(usually these same people are the jerks who complain the most about getting screened when they left their National Rodeo Champion sized belt buckle on and then wonder why they set off the metal detector). So, people and their bags get checked at random. At one point, my lane's bomb detector was required a minimum number of tests for our eight hour shift. If we didn't get that many, we were disciplined. Now, it's also not considered a violation of the Security Sensitive Information to tell the person they've been randomly selected to be screened, which is what I told people when I was working the walk-throughs. I even let the person "pick" the next person (via, asking them to pick a number between one and ten or one in twenty if it was during rush, and then sending that person to be randomly screened. If the person picked five, I sent the fifth person in, restarting the count if someone set off the machine. It solved two problems, the handwanders had something to do, and no one could say I was being biased as the person was randomly picked by a random person).

To answer why they don't train men on kilts anymore, that's done at the classroom training even BEFORE the screener is working at the airport. It doesn't mean it's not done at all, just not by the "in-airport" training and testing department. I was in the original group of screeners, and at the time, no one had foreseen this need, so the training was done in the airport after it became apparent male screeners had NO clue as to how to deal with this.

Asking questions on this I have received answers that were inconsistent and wrong "it's the rules if you have a kilt on for one." My last trip I had my wife observe as I passed through and they seemed to be itching for me to be confrontational.

So, no, it's not "in the rules" to screen a kilted man, however you could have gotten picked for standing out or to mess with the guys handwanding (not professional at all, but it happens). But, they can't really answer the question truthfully shy of saying "I can't answer that question", which usually makes a bigger scene, so sadly most people usually lie. And, all of us who have worked in a security related field can tell you, one always has to be ready for a confrontation when telling someone else to do something they don't want to do. I think sometimes that comes off as being itchy for one, but it's usually not intended that way (and yes, there a exceptions to this). Trust me, I always wish for a boring day at work when working security.

[Dale Seago]

This kind of thing was mentioned previously but just happened again -- do NOT get your wife mad at you before you board that plane!

http://travel.usatoday.com/flights/p...light/690195/1

[Deirachel]

Gee that's a combo of BOTH the other examples. The Colt .45 was packed by the wife because she caught him cheating the week before, and the dad put the knife in the kid's diaper to try to get it past screening (because he didn't want to "loose it" despite the fact there is a post office in Atlanta airport to mail to himself if he didn't want to take it to the car.)