Originally Posted by
dundem
I'm looking for advice on how to deal with this situation in the future- I was denied entry into the terminal area by a TSA agent because my company does not leave from the terminal of the airline that I was trying to jump-seat on; she insisted that I go to the check-in counter and get a boarding pass for the flight. Being the busy travel time that it is, by the time I was able to get assistance from the customer service agent, I missed my flight. That's after being at the security check-point an hour before departure.
Does TSA have the right to do this?
I didn't realize that they could as I was in uniform and displaying a valid ID from a US air carrier.
No, they do not! By virtue of having an airline ID you are entitled to pass through security into the airport without need of any sort of boarding pass. However, if the PARTICULAR airport has a policy that requires folks to have some sort of pass then you're stuck. Generally, you will only find that in small airports that have a "holding pen" once through security where you would get your seat at the front counters anyway. It's in the TSA regs as such, or at least it was one year ago when I had this discussion with a TSA guy at an airport I worked out of. He pulled out their little TSA reg library and we looked it up (no, this was not while I was trying to travel somewhere, we were just sitting around waiting out wx and started talking about it).