That it is "all the TSAs fault" seems to be the well rehearsed response by all Southwest phone support, check in personnel and gate agents, for the multiple impacts getting selected for a secondary security screening causes. It's TSA, not Southwest, so you get nothing from them to help rectify the situation of getting a late C group number when you went to all the trouble to checkin and your spouse on the same reservation gets A group. It is true that it is TSA for being selected for the secondary security screening for the one flight with the extra screening, but all the issues on subsequent connecting fights are caused by Southwest's reservation system and boarding process. There is no reason not to get assigned your legitimate place in line on the rest of your connecting flights as the TSA screening has nothing to do with them. Even worse then not being able to board with the rest of your party on the reservation on subsequent flights is losing your TSA Pre Check from paying for Global Entry on the rest of your connecting flights. On international flights you usually need to go through security again after clearing customs. On my recent trip back from Mexico, the rest of my party with TSA Pre Check cleared security in 5 minutes and then waited another 50 minutes for me to finally show up. This is very much Southwest's issue. Other airlines with different reservation systems have none of these issues.
There are things that Southwest could have and should have done on my connecting flight. I clearly should have had an A group number as all other folks on the reservation with me did. All the numbers are gone since the Southwest system would not assign my connecting flight boarding position since it wouldn’t assign the 1st flight. However, Southwest lets "special circumstance" folks board after the A group, before the B group. When I asked the gate agent in Miami, Monica V., if there was anything I could do to board at least close to the rest of my party, she parroted the party line that is was TSA’s fault and that there was nothing she could do. When I mentioned boarding after the A’s, she got that hostile look like I was just another low life trouble maker trying to cheat my way onto the plane before my turn. She stated that was ONLY for disabled passengers and my issue was not a Southwest problem.
An even better solution is for Southwest to still issue you your boarding position number for your connecting flights and not remove TSA PRE from your connecting flight boarding pass.
This is Southwest's problem, they just don't care as it will cost them money to fix their reservation system.
