New Rule Effective May 1, 2009, expected to expand to Int’l flights next year
Players and managers alike may have a new travel headache to contend with, thanks to the folks at the TSA. In short, if your boarding pass does not match your driver’s license – EXACTLY – the airline security folks (TSA) may not permit you to board that plane to that next tournament. A whole new layer of misery. Informal vs. formal name? (Dave/David, etc.) Drotz, I know you are reading this. Middle name on your driver’s license? Middle initial? No place for middle name or initial when using the online booking website? Arrrgh.
A saavy traveler explains:
I am just getting up to date with the new/upcoming TSA rules regarding “Secure Flight” (see links below) when TSA takes over the program from the airlines. Apparently, after May 1st, the name in a boarding pass needs to exactly match the name in the government issued ID (license or passport), including middle name. Date of birth and gender need to be added as well and I am sure those can be easily handled with the frequent flyer’s profile. Supposedly, a boarding pass will not be issued if the full name doesn’t match the ID or if it the booking hasn’t been approved by the new secure flight system that matches names with the no-fly list. This is data that will flow from airlines to DHS/TSA and just worries me that it may cause problems on last minute bookings and/or proper data transfer overall.
I have been reading and it seems unclear if they will accept just a matching first and last name or if a middle initial will be sufficient or if indeed a full name will be required.
Nevertheless, all these unanswered questions will be subject to interpretation by different airline agents in reservations or check in desk, TSA agents at security, travel agencies, etc etc. I guess TSA and airlines will come out with some clear rules.
But, are airlines ready for this? are they working on updating their reservation system to accept long middle names? how about the rush to change names on frequent flyer programs? are they ready for that too? It seems that TSA is causing a bigger problem, affecting the majority of flyers, to try to solve the problem of a small number of flyers that, unfortunately, are in the no-fly list by error.
Anybody from the airlines have an update on this? Or, as a frequent flyer, are you planning on adding your full middle name in all your frequent flyer programs?
More news coverage of the issue after the jump.
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