It's probably rare for them to actually check the birthdate from the ticket info.
DOB is on the boarding pass, right?
At least they closed the loophole where you could go through security with one name with a photoshopped boarding pass (no network connection) and board with a real one that doesn't match your ID (no ID check at the gate). They have scanners at the security check now to confirm the passes are real.
I doubt we're going to go back to people being able to fly anonymously, but why can't we detach having the TSA check identities from having your name on the ticket and disclosed to the airline? What, exactly, is so suspicious about booking at the last minute or reselling tickets or whatever name-linked-travel is theoretically supposed to prevent besides its main effect of helping the airlines price-discriminate?
No birthdate on the boarding pass among my pile of unthrown out paper, but I guess it could have been verified when I checked in with my credit card info.
Doesn't everybody know dozens of people named Gallagher, including their old neighbor who married a Ron Howard-look alike?
I just checked my most recent boarding pass, and no DOB. I suppose, per 4, it could be stored with my credit card or frequent flyer info, but I don't recall ever having to enter it.
My Alaska Airlines frequent flyer profile does include it, though, so it's definitely in the system somewhere.
Around the world tickets are pretty flexible, you could perhaps ditch the originator if it got boring or psycho?
AIHMHB, I flew on a low budget Euro airline without anyone checking any sort of ID at all. They were very concerned that my carry-on was under 14 kilos, but no one gave a damn if I was actually the person on my ticket. At one point I actually shoved my passport in the face of a woman at security and she waved it away with a look of complete disinterest. Not sure if it's blatant ethnic profiling or standard procedure for 2nd tier Italian airports to have less security than a long distance bus station. I was flying from Italy to Germany, FWIW.
"AIHMHB"? Google asks if I mean "HMHB". I have no idea.
The last boarding pass I can find just has name, flight no., date and a reference number that may in some way match the ticket, though for all I know it's free standing. I don't see why anybody with the same name as the person for whom the ticket was purchased shouldn't use it if they can get hold of it.
Not super secure. Also, all the people who found themselves on no fly lists because they had the same name as somebody who once served coffee to a terrorist's third cousin would have been OK if there was any reliable way of checking birth dates, so I assume there isn't.
Mind you, kudos to the guy who didn't want to waste his ticket.
AIHMHB, I flew on a low budget Euro airline without anyone checking any sort of ID at all. They were very concerned that my carry-on was under 14 kilos, but no one gave a damn if I was actually the person on my ticket. At one point I actually shoved my passport in the face of a woman at security and she waved it away with a look of complete disinterest. Not sure if it's blatant ethnic profiling or standard procedure for 2nd tier Italian airports to have less security than a long distance bus station. I was flying from Italy to Germany, FWIW.
Probably a Schengen thing. Almost all of my intra-Europe flying is from or two the UK, so they always check my passport, but you don't need them between say Italy and Germany. I'm kind of surprised they don't check ID at all though, just for security reasons.
Since they scan boarding passes at security now, what happens if you leave the secure area and try to enter again? I assume that's still allowed and pretty common?
I recently accidentally flew under an incorrect name (my middle name was my old "maiden" middle name). One out of three TSA people noticed. I brought my expired passport which cleared it up immediately, but I think it would have been ok even without my old ID.
I have a fairly long last name and a suffix, and for some reason the airlines always seem to screw it up. So instead of "Stanley Smithkowitz III" my boarding pass will say something like "Smithkoiii Stanl"—all characters that should be in there, but not in the right places. This usually causes some extra time at the security check, but I've always been let through. Even that one time when I accidentally had a Leatherman in the drum stick bag I was carrying on. Oops!
My name isn't that long, but it's been garbled on the boarding pass the last couple of times I've flown. It hasn't been an issue. All they care about is your passport, and that you have a ticket, I think.
We've had to produce birth certificates for babies. Older babies, not so crazy because they fly free until age two. But very little babies, it's a tad ridiculous. It's not like we're crossing the border.
Also, all the people who found themselves on no fly lists because they had the same name as somebody who once served coffee to a terrorist's third cousin would have been OK if there was any reliable way of checking birth dates, so I assume there isn't.
Isn't that what the optional "redress number" is about? For people who used to be on the list incorrectly, so the TSA (at some stage) can be referred back to the many times this has been demonstrated? (For a long time there was no process at all for this and some people got to be interrogated every time they flew, even if they had an official letter of exoneration - it's Cardinal Richelieu's world, we just live in it.)
I haven't read the link but I would assume that he simply called the airline and said that there had been a typo in Elizabeth Gallagher's birthdate, could they please correct to xx/xx/xxxx and reissue? Airlines won't let you transfer a non-transferable ticket to someone else, but if you're not trying to change the name on the ticket they would probably not be very suspicious. I've had tickets with typos in the name before and I was able to get them corrected without any problem.
16: One of the frequent traveler programs we are in is United, for which we were very careful to get my wife's middle name to match her driver's license (she has been inconsistent through the years in what she used). But United (in the spirit of their getting every single thing about flying wrong) issues both of our boarding passes with oddly shortened names.
21: Ha. My recent name-shortening flights have all been with United. Last week, I switched flights and ended up on Delta instead. They were so refreshingly competent.
Think they actually kept it platonic? Her defriending her bf on social media is a weird detail.
I imagine they did. They don't seem to have a lot in common besides a desire to see the world. And it says she kept in touch with the bf. Breaking social media links for the duration makes sense if she's tweeting her arse off and collecting thousands of followers and he doesn't want to be hassled.
12
Yeah, I'm not surprised they didn't want to see my passport in particular, just that there was no attempt at any step of the way to make sure I was actually the person with the name on the ticket. Going back the other direction IIRC they checked my ID during check-in and before going through security.
My name gets horribly mangled on almost every boarding pass, and there's usually a MS tacked on in the front, which adds to the mangling. (Like, if I'm MS FIRST MIDDLE LASTNAME, it get's written as MSFIRSTMI LASTN or MRFIRSTMLASTNA)
I've often seen the claim that you can fly without any ID at all, just allow 4-6 extra hours for serious interrogation.
28 is true. I had my wallet stolen once (post 9/11) the night before a morning I had to fly, still had one credit card but no other ID at all. I got to the airport early and went into a room for a roughly 20 minute (max) interview with the TSA, they did some paperwork and I got on the flight.
I've had my passport checked when crossing between Schengen countries, including being just about the only person checked in the train car I was riding in and getting pulled out of a line of mostly Scandinavians getting off a ferry. I'm 99% certain this is the result of profiling. When I've been questioned - only a couple of times, never long but I once had an everything but body cavity search before flying back to the US from Europe - it's been about drugs, so at least I don't look like a terrorist.
29. Wild guess: if your name had been Ṣalāḥ ad-Dīn Yūsuf ibn Ayyūb, the interview might have lasted a few minutes longer.
31: Au contraire. That is my name, and I never get questioned.
Does no one do any research any more?
I didn't read much of the linked article in the OP because I don't like reading about somebody getting their genitals removed.
I had my passport carefully checked not long ago for a regional Brazilian bus. Not sure what that was about.
The link in 34 changes my estimate of the chances of 24 not at all.
31
My cousin flew a few months after 9/11 with her 18 month old son, who has Saudi citizenship and an Arab name. He had been flagged as a high alert traveler, and had to get a full body cavity search and in addition a full interview at each airport on the way. My cousin was extremely outraged, in the way white people who get a taste of what it's like to experience life as a POC.
Not extremely outraged in the way parents get when their toddlers are body cavity searched?
35 - we're supposed to read the links???
(I mean, obviously *I* do, I was just pointing out for those other people discussing it who clearly hadn't. Yes.)
DOB is required to travel but isn't necessarily collected at time of ticket purchase, IME. And even if it is, it may be editable on the airline's website or by calling in before flight time.