If Your Boarding Pass Reads "SSSS," What Does It Mean? Here's What You Should Know

The holiday season is arriving, which more people than ever during the year are poised to travel. Whether you're headed home for the holidays, away for work, or off on some vacation to destinations divine, holiday travel can be a snarl with many complications and unexpected moments that make things more difficult.

One such a complication occurs for those who look at their boarding passes and note that it reads "SSSS." Some travelers call it the "Kiss of Death," and it's always unwelcome to those in the know. Not everyone's pass will show this, and it's usually an unexpected addition that can add time to your travel and hold up your plans. So what does it mean? Here's what you need to know if your pass shows "SSSS," why that might be, and what to do about it in the future.

To an unseasoned travelers, boarding passes can look like a jumble of numbers, symbols, and letters that only vaguely resemble recognizable language. Even for those who are familiar with travel, boarding passes can give you a headache as you try to sort out which bit means what and which parts are important for you to know versus which are for the airlines. There are airport codes, gate numbers, destination information, times, bar codes and other details that can quickly overwhelm.

So unless you know what to look for, you might not know that "SSSS" is a somewhat unusual designation. It stands for Secondary Security Screening Selection, and it means that you might want to call whoever's waiting for you on the other end of your trip and let them know that you're going to be a little bit delayed. Because "SSSS" is a designation that means you have been chosen to undergo additional security screening measures.

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) can tag this onto any boarding pass for flights within, into, or out of the United States. For those undergoing the "SSSS" screenings, you can expect to be pulled aside, possibly patted down, have your items searched and potentially swabbed, or you could undergo even more invasive screening measures. They may delay you by a few minutes, or half an hour or more.

For security purposes, the TSA has not openly published information on who gets chosen for this extra screening or why, but there are some things we can surmise. People traveling to or from high-risk locations may be chosen, for obvious reasons. It's also possible that they tag people randomly as a broad-reach screening effort. You won't know if you're tagged as "SSSS" for sure until you have the boarding pass in hand at the airport.

But one way to note that you might be dealing with it is if you are not given the opportunity to check in online. While this isn't the only reason for not being able to check in online, it's a good bet that you'll arrive to be handed a boarding pass with "SSSS" on it, so be prepared.

Unfortunately, people who get tagged with "SSSS" often anecdotally report that it happens to them repeatedly. But there is a way to potentially handle this. If you reach out to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Traveler Redress Inquiry Program (TRIP), they may be able to review your travel and personal situation and remove you from the list moving forward. It's no guarantee, but if this is something you keep experiencing for no reason, it's worth the attempt.

Travel overall can be a headache, and being unexpectedly delayed when you haven't done anything wrong can be both embarrassing and frustrating. But the TSA systems are in place to deal with real world issues that they've noted in the past, so most things are not done without reason. That might not make it any easier to swallow in the moment, however. So if you're heading to the skies this holiday season, give yourself some extra time and prepare for delays just in case.