Joe Sharkey reminds us that the Secure Flight program requires travelers to, from, or within the United States to ensure that the spelling of their name on their passport or government-issued identification must match precisely the spelling of their name on their boarding passes.
So if you use your driver’s license and it says John T. Smith, your ticket must also say John T. Smith — not John Thomas Smith, not Jack Smith, or any other name variant.
Let’s put aside for a moment the counterargument that names and identity do not, in and of themselves, create a security risk for anyone. Unless you start flicking driver’s licenses at passengers like Chinese stars…
Yes, in case you forgot, the terrorists won. Big time. But I digress.
The reality of travel in this great land is that your ID has to match your boarding pass. And you’ll have to give them your gender and date of birth, too, to distinguish you from similarly-named people who might be on a no-fly list.
And that means you’ll want (well, need) to update your customer profiles with the companies with whom you book flights.
Though the program is already implemented, the timeline for mandating 100% compliance isn’t clear:
TSA has built some flexibility into the processes regarding passenger name accuracy. For the near future, small differences between the passenger’s ID and the passenger’s reservation information, such as the use of a middle initial instead of a full middle name or no middle name/initial at all, should not cause a problem for the passenger. Over time, passengers should strive to obtain consistency between the name on their ID and their travel information.
The ease of actually changing your profile varies by company. American Airlines makes it easy to add/change your middle name/initial for Secure Flight compliance on their website. United requires that you e-mail them. Orbitz reprimands me to “re-enter a unique name and date of birth for each traveler,” but their site doesn’t actually include a field to actually enter a date of birth anywhere.
And don’t forget that your passport may not list your name the same way as your driver’s license or other government-issued ID. Be sure the ticket matches the identification you actually carry for a given trip.
I’ve made the changes with some, but not all, of the companies I book with, whether airlines or agencies. If I’ve been able to do it online, I’ve done it. Luckily, my passport and driver’s license both list my full name, including my complete middle name
So, have you updated your profiles? Or have you considered having an ID reissued to make sure it’s consistent with other identification? Hit the comments!
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October 21st, 2009 at 9:30 pm
I’m in no hurry to comply.
October 21st, 2009 at 9:44 pm
And what if your name is too long for your gov’t ID? Yeah it fits on my passport but I don’t like to use that for domestic travel.
October 22nd, 2009 at 10:09 am
When I was born, my parents couldn’t afford a middle name, so no issues here
Actually, I need to fix most of my wife’s accounts. I just noticed the othe day when booking a UA ticket for her that united.com asks for fist, middle initial and last name during booking. Her drivers license and passport have the full middle name. Looks like UA needs to go with the program, too.
October 22nd, 2009 at 3:36 pm
does that mean ticketing systems are going to start accepting hyphenated names? because until that happens, i’m out of luck.
October 22nd, 2009 at 7:22 pm
[...] that the Catholic Church in America is increasingly Latino (way to notice trends there, CNN); and make sure the name on your ticket matches the name on your ID exactly, because goodness knows we can’t trust the TSA to figure out that John S. Smith is the same [...]
October 23rd, 2009 at 7:33 am
So if you’re a permanent resident and the US government has chosen, for space reasons perhaps, to put your middle initial on your green card, but your own government has spelled it out in full on your passport, and you have to use both documents when traveling. what do you do? Which should I tell United to use – that’s United whose online check-in has all sorts of glitches for permanent residents, such as – today – asking for the green card number and then saying you can’t check in online because the US requires an onward ticket, never mind being a permanent resident for 35 years. And precisely how many copies of my fingerprints does the US really need?
October 26th, 2009 at 12:26 am
As someone with a hyphenated last name, I’ll tell you that it’ll be a while before this system really works. Some airlines eliminate the hyphen in my last name, some replace it with a space, etc. And that’s not even going into character limits on last names (mine has has 18 characters, over the limit for some carriers.)
November 8th, 2009 at 10:52 am
I’m with Kate and PFR. I’ve recently changed my hyphenated last name to just my husbands, but use my own now as my middle name (whew). But that’s just what I call myself, and it’s not yet reflected on any ‘official’ docs. And even using my birth name, middle initial and birth last name I exceed the character-limit in many databases. Fuggedaboutit! That said, I don’t really look forward to being kept off a flight because of this fiasco. Will have to go through the formal process to change all. Let’s see, what does that entail? Get new SocSec card. Get name change for passport. Get name change for driver’s license. Contact every airline and change names on frequent flier programs. Oh, probably need to notify employer, too, or I’ll get dunning notices that their submissions for my tax withholdings don’t match IRS records. Anybody I’m missing???