Familiar Names Tell of Hassles at Airport

Regarding “Having the Wrong Name Can Hold You Up,” about the government’s airline security “selectee list” (Business Itinerary, July 15):

I had a similar experience with being on the selectee list and found the article very accurate. I fly frequently and have had repeated problems like those you described for traveler James Fenimore Cooper.

However, the article left the impression that a person could clear things up by sending notarized documents to the Transportation Security Administration. In my case, that has not helped, despite months of follow-up letters and phone calls.

The airlines still follow their selectee procedures. To be fair, they have seen so much of this that they clear the issue pretty fast most of the time. Having a long-term frequent-flier relationship with an airline is generally enough.

One time the airline clerk serving me asked for help from her supervisor and then revealed that she herself had been subject to the same problem with a flight back from Hawaii. Her supervisor chimed in that she too had the same problem once.

The TSA is one of the most incompetent agencies that we have set up in some time.

Robert Moore

Tustin

Readers Mike Burns, Patrick Campbell, Robert Gray and Thomas Wilson also responded to James Gilden’s column with stories of their frustration in finding their names on the TSA’s selectee list.