Quote Originally Posted by WingsAloft View Post
There has been a question I've been wondering over for some time, and that is; Do GA pilots have to ever go through the same TSA ritual as the commercial passenger? Forgive me if this is a stupid question as I am at "ground school" stage and I've never been on a commercial flight. Now I know thaf at least in some cases this is not the case: at nearby LYH one could go though the commercial terminal which has TSA, or one could go through one of several FBO's where one experiences the perfect level of TSA scrutiny (which is zero). But LYH is a relatively small commercial airport. So what if I wanted to go to Chicago O'Hare? Now I know that that would hardly be necessary---as a GA pilot I would typically have better options. But what if I did land at O'Hare? Could I theoretically find a FBO where I need not go through TSA? Thanks for your input!
At KORD (O'Hare) and at KBOS (Boston-Logan) there is only one FBO on the airport.....Signature Flight Support. Signature has hired their own version of TSA to scan GA passengers and crews coming and going and charge you $50 in addition to the usual facility fees for the privilege. I know of no other GA facilities that use security to scan passengers or crew except for the gateway program when using KDCA, and then those are real live TSA agents (oh joy) and approved air Marshall's, who must ride on the aircraft when arriving and departing KDCA.