Narrative:

Upon landing a gate agent met the aircraft. He wanted to board as soon as the passengers from the previous flight were deplaned and he cleaned and removed trash himself while the passengers were still deplaning. I asked for the preliminary paperwork prior to boarding. He started boarding and halfway through boarding he gave me the paperwork I asked for. On the paperwork it showed that we had two armed individuals and 1 escorted prisoner. I also knew that we had two air marshals (fams) on board since the two that were on the flight were on the previous flight that we just brought in. They moved seats but I recognized each of them as did my flying partner. After everyone was boarded he came on board to give me the final paperwork and informed me that he didn't inform the flight deck nor the flight attendants of the armed individuals; the fams (2) and the escorted prisoner. He said something around the lines of 'my bad my bad that's my fault I told the marshals but not you guys.' I said that it's very serious since we need to know who's on board the airplane. The first officer asked me if the gate agent told us; the flight attendants about the above and I explained to him; no. I am not writing this up for the gate agent to be reprimanded. But rather I'm doing this because this was a major security issue and I feel that [the company] and the appropriate parties need to know to ensure this does not happen again.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: Air carrier Flight Attendant reported being rushed by the Gate Agent and not being informed about Air Marshals and an escorted prisoner before boarding.

Narrative: Upon landing a gate agent met the aircraft. He wanted to board as soon as the passengers from the previous flight were deplaned and he cleaned and removed trash himself while the passengers were still deplaning. I asked for the preliminary paperwork prior to boarding. He started boarding and halfway through boarding he gave me the paperwork I asked for. On the paperwork it showed that we had two Armed Individuals and 1 escorted prisoner. I also knew that we had two Air Marshals (FAMS) on board since the two that were on the flight were on the previous flight that we just brought in. They moved seats but I recognized each of them as did my flying partner. After everyone was boarded he came on board to give me the final paperwork and informed me that he didn't inform the flight deck nor the flight attendants of the armed individuals; the FAMS (2) and the escorted prisoner. He said something around the lines of 'my bad my bad that's my fault I told the marshals but not you guys.' I said that it's very serious since we need to know who's on board the airplane. The first officer asked me if the gate agent told us; the flight attendants about the above and I explained to him; no. I am not writing this up for the gate agent to be reprimanded. But rather I'm doing this because this was a major security issue and I feel that [the company] and the appropriate parties need to know to ensure this does not happen again.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site 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.