Comments on: TSA Needs Your Exact Name When You Fly Now

By: Jim B

Jim B — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 18:13:01 +0000

If we weren’t so picky about it, there would be a unique identifying NUMBER for each individual to use on documents. (Think SSN). But somehow people started thinking of these as secret PIN numbers rather than a database key (unique record locator).

By: John Q. Public

John Q. Public — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:27:19 +0000

Stupid is as stupid does, typical goverment morons.
Your first and last name should be all you need.
Your gender and age is B.S., but I can live with that.
I have a long first and middle name, and on top of that I have a second middle name. It depands on the D.M.V.s system at the time, on how my name shows up on my license. I do not use my middle names any more for any thing unles I have to.
I guess the only way around this STUPID rule is to go to court and drop my middle names so that my first and last name is my legal name
Of course then I would be questioned why I do not have a middle name.
Gee I thought Bush was out of office.
P.S. watch out for those women who carry breast milk on board,
and Al Gore.

By: Bev

Bev — Sat, 30 May 2009 12:41:07 +0000

Everyone here seems to be assuming that “we the people” control how our names appear on “official” documents like drivers licenses. In New York if your first or middle name is too many characters they automatically shorten it to the initial(s). So now I have a license with my first and middle initial and last name and a passport with my full name… Moral of the story… 50 state motor vehicles depts cannot be coordinated.

By: Travel Thoughts and ID | Flight Wisdom

Travel Thoughts and ID | Flight Wisdom — Wed, 27 May 2009 01:19:29 +0000

[...] the traveler unsure of what to expect? For example, the Transportation Security Administration has begun implementing their new security measures. The first stage of which is that the name on your ticket [...]

By: CF

CF — Tue, 26 May 2009 15:26:30 +0000

Peter – I really hope that something as simple as having two words smushed into one wouldn’t cause problems. Of course, there’s no better way to find out than to test it.

By: Peter

Peter — Tue, 26 May 2009 14:42:35 +0000

My last name is legally two words.
It is spelled that way on my passport.
I buy my tickets with my name spelled correctly.

BUT the airlines then concatenate the name into a single word. Now my name doesn’t match my passport. I’ve only been questioned on this when leaving The Netherlands. I wonder if this will have an effect? I can always show my military I.D. when traveling stateside, since they couldn’t figure out two words either…

By: FarCap

FarCap — Mon, 25 May 2009 23:23:31 +0000

The Internatonal Air Transport Association (IATA) is the organization where all of the airlines agree to how to store and transmit data like names. IATA is the place where the airlines originally agreed BETWEEN THEMSELVES that you can’t use å and ø. That’s because in the old days they were using teletype machines around the world that only support minimal character sets. And then, most of the world’s Customs/Immigration agencies followed suite. So, don’t blame TSA on that! (TSA is not Custome/Immigration.)

You might be able to use them if you are flying domestically on an airline like SAS and book directy with SAS (so there is no transmission between a travel agency and the airline that has to comply with IATA specs).

By: MathFox

MathFox — Sun, 24 May 2009 21:55:25 +0000

FYI, I entered two Chinese names in the previous comment, but they were replaced by ??? each.
And WordPress gave an error message… underscoring that a proper implementation is not trivial.

By: MathFox

MathFox — Sun, 24 May 2009 21:43:37 +0000

Cranky, it is not “just” airline compliance… all booking systems have to be adapted. A Swede buying a ticket on a Greek Internet site should be able to get his å and ø in. Should people from countries with non-latin alphabets be allowed to enter the natural spelling of their name or should they use the latinized version? Can the TSA see the difference between ??? and ??? or do both look Chinese to them?

By: CF

CF — Sun, 24 May 2009 19:35:00 +0000

Chris – They check the name to try and match it up against the watch list to see if you’re a scary person or not. Whether this is effective or not is a whole different story.

Next time you travel to the US, let us know how it goes.