One of my best friends is a commercial pilot for United Airlines and regularly flies 747s from Chicago to Asia and Europe. He lives in Memphis and commutes to Chicago via a connecting flight, usually arriving in Chicago several hours before his scheduled flight. Today he missed his connecting flight from Memphis to Chicago after being detained and groped by the TSA. Of course, he was not able to make his Chicago to London flight and lost his pay.
My friend and client is a no-nonsense guy who doesn’t put up with much. He was politely waiting in line to go through the Memphis checkpoint when he noticed that only one line was available. After hearing customers complaining, he decided to ask a TSA supervisor if another check line could be opened.
After getting a hostile negative response, he decided to drop the matter as he was in a hurry to catch his flight. Since he was going to be piloting a plane in several hours, he was wearing his United Airlines uniform. Since he is a pilot he was not required to stand in line and had been immediately ushered through the normal x-ray checkpoint without problems or alarms going off.
After passing through the checkpoint, he noticed a female TSA employee not going through the checkpoint and made a comment about the person not being checked. That is when the shit hit the fan. She immediately required him to go through a punitive recheck.