Narrative:

I was not the captain on this flight. I was to ride in the back as a passenger. I reported to the gate agent to tell her I was transporting my weapon. I asked if there were any other weapons on board the aircraft. She stated there were not. I then left the podium. The other gate agent who opened the door for the flight crew told me of an fbi agent who was on the flight. No one else had presented themselves to the agents in this time frame. I advised the other agent had told me there were no other armed passengers. At this time I was informed by this agent that the leo had checked in some time ago. I asked the first agent to talk; she either did not hear me; was too busy to talk; or did not want to talk about the issue. At this time I asked the other agent to call a supervisor as I wanted this issue resolved. I then described the situation to him. He stated I was correct in my assessment. It was the agents' job to know who had weapons and to make sure each person knew of the others that were carrying these weapons. When I told her discretely I had a weapon; she stated 'ok; you're an ffdo' loud enough for those in line to hear. This also should not take place; a simple 'ok; sounds good' and then tell me discretely of any other armed passengers and their location on the aircraft. It seems too many times the agents do not take this issue seriously enough. Whether it is because they are too busy or do not know how important it is that those who 'need to know; know' and no one else I am not sure. This I am sure about. It needs to change. We need to develop a simple 'discrete' SOP where an agent and the leo can communicate those things that need to be communicated to each person who 'needs to know'. We can't be sure that passengers do not know the acronyms we use. We should assume if they hear the words 'ffdo' or--as I have heard--'ok; you have a weapon' that they know at least one is on board. This should never be the case.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: An FFDO Captain addresses the lack of circumspection employed by a gate agent when discussing the presence of multiple armed passengers on a particular flight.

Narrative: I was not the Captain on this flight. I was to ride in the back as a passenger. I reported to the gate agent to tell her I was transporting my weapon. I asked if there were any other weapons on board the aircraft. She stated there were not. I then left the podium. The other gate agent who opened the door for the flight crew told me of an FBI agent who was on the flight. No one else had presented themselves to the agents in this time frame. I advised the other agent had told me there were no other armed passengers. At this time I was informed by this agent that the LEO had checked in some time ago. I asked the first agent to talk; She either did not hear me; was too busy to talk; or did not want to talk about the issue. At this time I asked the other agent to call a supervisor as I wanted this issue resolved. I then described the situation to him. He stated I was correct in my assessment. It was the agents' job to know who had weapons and to make sure each person knew of the others that were carrying these weapons. When I told her discretely I had a weapon; she stated 'OK; you're an FFDO' loud enough for those in line to hear. This also should not take place; a simple 'OK; sounds good' and then tell me discretely of any other armed passengers and their location on the aircraft. It seems too many times the agents do not take this issue seriously enough. Whether it is because they are too busy or do not know how important it is that those who 'need to know; know' and no one else I am not sure. This I am sure about. It needs to change. We need to develop a simple 'discrete' SOP where an agent and the LEO can communicate those things that need to be communicated to each person who 'needs to know'. We can't be sure that passengers do not know the acronyms we use. We should assume if they hear the words 'FFDO' or--as I have heard--'OK; you have a weapon' that they know at least one is on board. This should never be the case.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of April 2012 and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.