Reader Richard T. writes:

The incident where the guy snuck through security to see his girlfriend off on a flight got me thinking: Is there a legal way for a person to go through airport security without having a boarding pass? I’m happy to submit to all manner of screenings, wandings, pat-downs, etc.

Yes, actually, there are a couple.

1. Request a gate pass from the airline
Under certain circumstances, you can obtain a gate pass, essentially a permission slip issued by an airline, which allows you to pass through security and to the gates. (Of course, you’re subject to inspection, like everyone else.) Gate passes are typically issued to parents/guardians of a minor traveling alone, to a medical assistant, to an interpreter, or to someone designated as accompanying an elderly person, usually for health reasons. And under TSA Security Directive 1544-01-10w, family of military personnel may get passes to “sterile concourse areas to escort the military passenger to the gate or to meet a military passenger’s inbound arrival at the gate.” Gate passes are free, but are issued at the airline’s discretion. Just saying you’d like to meet your friends and family? Not good enough, typically, but take your best shot!

2. Buy a refundable ticket.
Buy a fully-refundable ticket — to anywhere. Somewhere cheap, somewhere expensive, it doesn’t matter. Buy it, then check in. Print your boarding pass. Walk through security, with a perfectly legal boarding pass. Wave goodbye (or hello) to your friends from the gate. Exit the secure area of the airport. Refund the ticket, by phone or at the counter. (Remember, it was fully refundable. FULLY. But do it before the flight leaves.) It’s an annoying step, but there’s nothing illegal about it.

Richard, you asked about the legal options. So I know you’re not interested in illegal methods, like printing your own forged boarding passes. Phony passes won’t work to get you onto a plane, but they might get you through the security checkpoint. They could also get you a visit from the FBI, since they violate the U.S. code, title 18, part 1, chapter 47, § 1036. Needless to say, NOT RECOMMENDED unless you want to go to jail. But it’s been done…

Any other techniques out there? Hit the comments!

When you get your boarding pass, regardless of when or where, check the name.

Septuagenarian comedienne Joan Rivers got stuck in Costa Rica, blaming the Continental gate agent in Costa Rica for being “an idiot, a moron,” for not letting her on the plane. In an interview with Larry King (another septuagenarian!) on CNN, Rivers implied that the name on her passport (“Rosenberg, aka Rivers”) caused her problems. And CNN ran tickers asking “Joan Rivers: A Security Threat?” Oy. But as the interview proceeds, it’s clear that the dual name on the passport was never a problem.

Rather, she had someone else’s boarding pass. Instead of “Joan,” it was “Joseph.” And when the vigilant gate agent compared the boarding pass to the passport, there was a problem.

Granted, Rivers (or Rosenberg) has a point that there were other points along the way when this could have been caught. At the check-in counter. Or at security. But if I dare use a phrase that’s gotten others into trouble of late, “the system worked.” The gate agent was there to do a final check, and she caught it. She was right to raise a flag, especially given the hypersensitive security environment we’re in.

Should Rivers have been stranded in Costa Rica? Probably not. I’m sure there is some way the airline could have handled this in a way that didn’t create a ruckus, and that verified that Joan, not Joseph, should have been traveling. But I am not privy to the details of her ticket PNR.

The bottom line, and the lesson here: Check the name on your boarding pass. Mistakes happen. And you don’t want to be caught at the gate, trying to fix it. Check the documents as soon as you receive them, and verify things immediately.

Here’s the whole insufferable interview, if you feel like torturing yourself. Masochistic? Well, alright: Around 2:19 is where she is asked about the name on the boarding pass.

Here in the US, paperless boarding cases are not (yet) as widespread as they’ve become overseas, but their use is growing.

This week, Continental, who has been the paperless leader in the US, expanded their rollout to San Juan, Puerto Rico. (The TSA needs to update their list of paperless-enabled airports…)

Continental also started accepting paperless passes for US-bound flights departing Frankfurt, Germany earlier this month.

In lieu of a printed boarding pass, paperless passes are sent to your mobile phone. (Standard text message rates apply…) The pass contains both a barcode and text, identifying the passenger and flight. The square barcode gets scanned twice, once at security, and once at the gate.

I haven’t had a chance to put paperless boarding to the test yet. The confluence of airlines and airports accepting the technology just hasn’t been aligned for my travels yet. But what about you?

Have you gone paperless? If so, what did you think? Have you had any problems, or are you a big fan? If you’ve had the opportunity, but haven’t done it, what’s holding you back?

Take the poll, and hit the comments!

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(Reading in the feed? Can’t see the poll? Click here to visit the site to vote and/or comment.)

Upgraded: Business reasons for business travel
Take this with a grain of salt the size of a Rubik’s Cube, but the U.S. Travel Association announced that research they commissioned shows that “every dollar invested in business travel generates an average $12.50 in increased revenue and $3.80 in new profits.” Slightly more specifically, “Executives cited customer meetings as having the greatest returns, approximately $15-$19.99 per dollar invested, with conference and trade show participation returns ranging from $4-$5.99 per dollar invested.” The entire report — which is based on a survey of perceptions of the impact of travel — is available here.

Upgraded: Baggage allowances on Gulf Air
This isn’t something you’ll see in North America anytime soon: Gulf Air is raising the weight limits for passengers with (complimentary!) checked baggage, effective October 1, 2009. And the increases aren’t small: +10 kg (22 lbs), in each class. That raises the total weight limits for First, Business and Economy to 50 kg, 40 kg, and 30 kg, respectively. Silver-level frequent fliers in Gulf Air’s frequent flyer program get another 15 kg; gold members get another 20 kg. Individual bags are still limited to a whopping 32kg (70 lbs) each.

Upgraded: Virgin Atlantic’s website
Sure, airline websites have been selling hotel reservations and rental cars. But now Virgin Atlantic is trying to go further by offering “add-ons” like passports and visas. Services are provided by CIBT, either via the Virgin website or call center. (Or, perhaps more accurately, centre.)

Upgraded: Paperless boarding passes at US airports
The number of airlines and airports that permit scanning boarding passes from your mobile device keeps increasing. The TSA blog compiles the who/where. Here’s the bottom line, airlines and airport codes:

Continental: IAH, DCA, EWR, BOS, AUS, SAT, CLE, LGA, LAS, SFO, ORD, LAX, SAN, FLL, TPA, PDX, PHX, CLT, MSY, RDU, MCO
Delta/Northwest: ATL, LAS, MEM, MSP, DET, SLC, CVG
Delta only: LGA
Northwest only: IND
Alaska: SEA
American: ORD, SNA, LAX

Upgraded: Punishments for abusive passengers in-flight
The FAA is increasing the size of the penalties it levies against unruly passengers, like the man who “dropped his pants and exposed himself to the female passenger sitting next to him, then punched her, according to an FBI affidavit.” Good.

Let no one ever accuse Ryanair of tasteful restraint. The Euro-discounter who refuses to rule out anything in the quest for cost savings and revenue streams has now declared that customers wishing to get a boarding pass for their flight will need to pay for it. No matter what you paid for your ticket, you’ll still have to pay more to actually use it.

Ryanair passengers face a £5 charge per flight to print out their tickets at home as part of moves to abolish check-in desks and increase revenues. The policy replaces Ryanair’s practice of offering free online ticketing and charging anyone who opted for face-to-face check-in £10.

In future, anyone who arrives at the airport without a pre-printed check-in card will have to pay a £40 “boarding card re-issue fee”. In-built restrictions to the online ticketing system mean many customers will be unable to print their tickets when they book, raising the chances for penalty charges from customers who think they have completed the process.

Ryanair says its system won’t allow customers booking more than 15 days before their flight, or within four hours of one, to check in at that time. So those who book farther in advance will have to revisit the website nearer the time of their trip to check in.

Wow.

It’s hard enough when you’re traveling and don’t have a printer nearby. (Yes, many business hotels offer boarding pass printers, but what if you’re on vacation and staying at a rental villa? Not every traveler is printer-equipped.) But now you’ll be charged a fee to do the check-in yourself, even if you have access to a printer? Amazing.

It’s actually laughable, but I’m honestly impressed at the nerve of this. They’ve taken a cost-saving measure and turned it into a source of revenue. They’re ditching check-in counters already, so the revenue from this fee comes on top of personnel and infrastructure savings. Shameless.

I think it’s high time for customers to start charging fees themselves, and submitting invoices to the airlines that nickel-and-dime their customers. Send past-due notices with late fees, while you’re at it. Could be fun. How about an ink and paper fee of fifty cents per page? Send the airline a bill! An online networking fee for the time spent on their site? Send a bill! An airline selection fee, to account for the opportunity cost of not booking with a different carrier? Send a bill!

…But good luck collecting.

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Upgraded: Security on flights without air marshals
An unruly passenger who tried to open an emergency door mid-flight was tackled by members of Major League Soccer’s New England Revolution. Other passengers breathed two sighs of relief: One, that the exiting passenger wasn’t able to screw around with the door. Two, that they were flying with soccer players from Massachusetts, and not with the Uruguayan rugby team.

Downgraded: One-Two-Go takes a vacation
The Thai discount carrier says it’s canceling flight for two months, blaming fuel prices. It’s usually all or nothing, fly or shut down. That two month time-out seems like it would kill any customers’ confidence in the viability of those tickets. Are they simply putting off the inevitable, or making a brilliant move for survival?

Upgraded: Airline revenue streams
Starting this week, Delta has started slapping advertising on some self-printed boarding passes, under an agreement with the marketing company Sojern. See a sample image below. Is it annoying? Maybe. But frankly, I can’t get worked up over this. Cranky is upset about the “demographically” targeted ads that appear on the page, but I see demographically-targeted ads on dozens of websites every day, and I’ve made my peace with those, so I’m just shrugging this one off. I’d rather see ads on boarding passes than “web convenience fees” or tray-table advertisements.

Downgraded: American Airlines luggage policy
American Airlines is the latest to charge an extra fee for a second checked bag. For a while, they were a holdout. This will apparently affect 4% of their passengers. I actually expected that number to be higher. Understandable move, considering the airline is losing $3.3M per day.

Downgraded: Skycap tips
Upgraded: Vindictiveness
American Airlines is being completely petty in their legal dispute with skycaps. You may recall that the skycaps won their suit, in which they argued that they were being cheated when the airline imposed a $2 fee, which most passengers believed to be paid to the skycap. (It was paid to the airline.) So now the airline strikes back by banning tips to skycaps. Vindictive, and frankly begging for another lawsuit.

Downgraded: Spirit Airlines’ baggage handling
Why just lose a passenger’s luggage, when you can burn the luggage instead?

Downgraded: Airline credit ratings, thanks to mergers. What?
Airlines keep saying how mergers will be just fab for their bottom lines. But credit rating agency Moodys’ predicts that airlines would be downgraded if mergers happen. Why? Moody’s doesn’t believe the merger partners will meet their goals, and won’t see the promised synergies happen.

Upgraded: WC signs
Better signage for public rest rooms than these? I haven’t seen them.

Upgraded: Paperless boarding passes
The TSA and Continental have teamed up to expand the use of paperless boarding passes for travelers with smartphones. I like!

Upgraded: Viagra, caffeine, and naps
For those seeking to beat jet lag, Viagra can help. (Seriously.) But for those not looking to channel their inner Bob Dole, caffeine and naps work well, too. How… intuitive.

Upgraded: Tracking your past travels
If you’ve traveled internationally between 1996 and 2006, and if you used an American credit or debit card abroad, you’re eligible for a refund of some undisclosed fees, thanks to a class action settlement. But unless you’re a supreme dork (umm, like me…) who has all your year-end summaries or stacks of credit card statements, you’ll need to estimate your spending. To make that work out for you, you need to know when you were out of the country. (For supreme dorks like me, there’s the running spreadsheet of flights and miles…) Debbie Dubrow of DeliciousBaby writes in with her credit card settlement hack to help you figure out how much time you were abroad: Look at your digital photos and check the dates. For pre-digital images, just browse the photo albums. Brilliant! But it’s not foolproof. My photos aren’t organized into albums. And on business travel, who takes photos??

Southwest took another step away from its rebellious past and another step toward being just another legacy carrier today. But if you’re traveling last minute on the company dime, there may be a silver lining: Expensive fares, usually bought very close to departure, will now come with a guaranteed “A”-group boarding pass, assuring early boarding and seat selection under Southwest’s open seating model. Plus, you get a free cocktail.

Unclear from early reports is how the number in one’s boarding group is calculated for these passengers. (Southwest recently started numbering boarding passes within the A, B, and C groups, and requiring passengers to board in sequential order.)

Many Southwest fans will be outraged. The airline is gradually moving away from its democratic model, and going with a “money talks, BS walks” approach.

But at the same time, loyalty will be rewarded, too. Much like elite frequent flyers at United, Northwest, or US Airways get access to “premium” economy seats, Rapid Rewards members with 32 flights under their belt in one year are guaranteed an “A” boarding pass.

And in a marketing spin, those expensive last-minute fares would now be termed “Business Select” fares.

(Ooooh, “select”… Isn’t that a grade of beef? Select… choice… prime… The old-style “cattle call” may be gone, but the bovine metaphors live on.)

So, to recap: Expensive tickets get more perks and better seats. Frequent flyers get “upgrades.” And the marketers are spinning tales about how revolutionary and great this all is.

Sounds like a “legacy” airline. Not that there’s anything necessarily wrong with that. But the low-cost revolutionary hype is not in tune with reality any more.

They’ve grown up, perhaps. But Southwest is turning into the airlines it once mocked. Welcome to middle age!

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UPDATE December 3, 2007: Southwest issued cease-and-desist orders to both of these sites, too. Looks like the automated check-in game is over.

In June 2006, Southwest Airlines sued the owners of a small website, boardfirst.com, that gave travelers the opportunity to automatically check into their flights 24 hours before takeoff. As Southwest travelers know, the key to getting a good seat under their open seating system is checking in early — especially now that the boarding passes are numbered, and not just divided into groups A, B, and C.

Southwest wouldn’t have any little pipsqueak helping their customers get an early spot in line, so they sued. Well, the airline won.

Speculation is now rife that they’ll introduce their own early-check-in system for a fee someday soon.

Looking back at my post from last year, in which six boarding-pass providers were named, only one is still up and running: PlaneFast.com. Better yet, PlaneFast is free to use (though they welcome donations). A new entrant, Pass-a-matic, is in a beta testing phase, but with PlaneFast already up and running — and free — why mess with a beta test when you can work with an established player?

So options still exist. Just fewer of them. In any case, boo Southwest.

UPDATE December 3, 2007: Southwest issued cease-and-desist orders to both of these sites, too. Looks like the automated check-in game is over.

Related:
- Getting the best seats on Southwest just got harder
- Southwest’s revised seating policy
- Southwest tests “families-only” section on planes

When e-tickets first rolled out, they held the promise of paperless travel. For example, Alaska Airlines, the first domestic U.S. carrier to introduce wireless check-in back in early 2001, offered this nugget to the media when they rolled it out: “Once a passenger checks in via a cell phone or another wireless device, he or she can go directly to the appropriate gate, show a photo identification and board the plane.” Ha!

Ah, what could’ve been. I was reminded of the pre-9/11 predictions of how e-travel would be when I read how Northwest Airlines rolled out upgrades to their website, allowing you to perform a greater number of services via wireless devices. If you browse over to their site with your mobile, you’ll be able to buy tickets, change reservations, check in, etc. (Other airlines, such as Southwest, let you check in for your flights, but don’t let you buy tickets wirelessly.) But fully electronic travel, once promised, is a bust. It’s still a paper-trail world. The trees aren’t safe.

You can’t print a paper boarding pass from your smartphone, after all. Even in Europe, where you can use SMS text messaging to check in, you still need to stop at an airport kiosk and choose to “reprint” the pass.

After 9/11, it was no longer possible to go through security without a paper boarding pass. Mind you, the real security benefit of this requirement is highly questionable. Sure, it means that fewer people actually pass through security, but having a slip of paper with your name on it really doesn’t make you any more or less of a threat. (See, for example, the hoopla surrounding the fake boarding pass generator.)

At the end of the day, I’m glad to have Northwest and others on the wireless train. Being able to make changes via the wireless web really is an improvement. But it falls short of the predictions that we could skip the paper boarding passes altogether. Or that gate readers could scan a phone, or swipe a card, at the gate. That would really put the “e” back into e-tickets. Dare to dream.

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Related:
- Forged boarding passes: Fraud, yes, but where is the security threat?