Jim Langley, owner of the Travel Agency in Chiefland, Fla., near Gainesville, has since Oct. 16 been printing an additional message on the bottom of every itinerary he sends to customers. It says:
"Due to security regulations, all passengers over age 18 must have a federal, state or locally issued photo ID that matches the name on the ticket. Infants under 2 years must have a birth certificate or shot record to show age."Langley said he added the warning for adults after getting a number of complaints from clients that airlines would not let them board their flights because the name on the identification card varied in some way from the name on the ticket.
Many agencies are now issuing such warnings: Diane Ruppert, president of the Travel Company in Madison, Wis., started adding them to itineraries in July, when the security level was stepped up by the Federal Aviation Administration.
The FAA identification regulations have meant a big change in check-in procedures - but only on domestic flights, since most passengers on international flights must present passports, which include photo identification.
These new requirements, aside from slowing check-in, mean that passengers must be precise about their documentation. Using someone else's ticket was never allowed by airline rules, but is nearly impossible now. Women who use their own names although married should check the names airlines put on their tickets. In all cases, nicknames and initials in place of full names are best avoided unless they appear on the government-issued identification.
The identification rules flow from two FAA requirements, one issued in 1995 and one this year. Both were less specific than the notice on some travel agency itineraries indicates. But according to Mark S. Hess, an FAA spokesman, the agency permits the airlines to enforce more stringent regulations if they wish, and travel agencies wisely prepare clients for strict enforcement.
In August 1995, the government required airlines to inspect identification for any passenger checking luggage. Photo identification was preferred, but two forms of identification were acceptable, so long as one was from a local, state or federal agency - for example, a Medicare card.
On July 25, after the crash of Trans World Airlines Flight 800, security rules for domestic flights were tightened again, although the FAA will not discuss specifics publicly. According to Hess, the FAA did not revise the requirement for identification, but by this time most airlines were requiring a government-issued photo identification for all passengers anyway, and were within their rights. Hess said that no minimum age was specified but that anyone old enough to drive a car would be well advised to carry photo identification; the FAA does not consider college identification cards acceptable.
One group that has been affected by these rules are women who use one name for business and another in private life, or who do not take their husbands' names. If two tickets are booked for a couple and the same last name is printed on the tickets, but it does not match the woman's photo identification, there may be a problem. A ticket should be made in the same name as the identification.
Men who use nicknames in everyday life, such as Jack in place of Jacob, also have to think twice now.
These developments have a business impact as well. Airlines are apparently, in the old "Casablanca" line, shocked - shocked! - to discover that people have been traveling on other people's tickets. But now when Junior Jones presents Senior Jones's ticket, the airline simply checks Junior's identification and tells him he must buy a ticket of his own.
It has long been against airline rules for passengers to swap tickets, either selling them to other parties or trading within a couple or family. But airlines tended to be permissive, since they were not losing revenue. Now, however, they have a built-in inspection system, thanks to the new security regulations, and they are profiting from it. The gate agents have their orders, and no passenger should expect them to make exceptions.
Gerry Jung, vice president and secretary of the American Society of Travel Agents, called the capture of revenue from passengers trying to circumvent the system "a side benefit to the airlines."
Although airlines will not acknowledge they have netted many customers using the tickets of others, Langley and Ms. Ruppert and several other agents said the numbers were substantial.
At American Airlines, Tim Smith, a spokesman, said that there were not "large numbers" of such cases, although soon after the 1996 regulations went into effect, some passengers "tested the envelope." On the other hand, Ms. Ruppert said: "We were surprised, and so apparently were the airlines, to find out how many families swapped tickets around."
All five members of a family I know have the same first initial, and they have bought tickets using the last name and first initial only and swapped them around, even for overseas trips. Agents are now reluctant to issue tickets this way, unless the driver's license or other photo identification also uses initials only.
However, Kim King, a spokes-woman for Delta Air Lines, said that initials on a ticket were acceptable, provided that the name on the photo identification was the same.
And it's not just families that have been using others' tickets. Travel agents said university newspapers were formerly fully of ads - "To K.C. at Easter for a female" - for tickets to sell, barter or swap. Office bulletin board offers have also apparently been disappearing.
Ms. Ruppert, who has owned her agency for nine years, said that for a long time she had been issuing tickets with honorifics, "Mr. Dale Smith," for example, to try to reduce ticket-swapping. When Ms. Ruppert began warning her clients of the need for photo identification, she said, one was speechless, saying she always flew in one direction and her mother made the return trip while she drove her mother's car back. Many travel agents said this was a typical situation for couples, too.
Some people getting tangled in the new regulations have not intended to break the rules.
Langley said his first complaint came from a client who usually bought two round-trip tickets at once because he made regular trips with his daughter between Gainesville, Fla., and Lexington, Ky.
On one occasion, she could not travel, and he grabbed one ticket and left for the Gainesville airport. There he discovered that he had his daughter's ticket. The Delta agents let him take the trip out but once in Lexington, he could not get home again; he had to buy a one-way ticket at the walk-up price. The unused return ticket had a red stamp on it saying: "Check ID," presumably to prevent its use by anyone but his daughter.
"At some of the smaller airports," Langley said, "they had been ignoring the security rules, but he found out that this would not work in the bigger place."
When someone cannot use a ticket, the owner may ask an agent or airline to reissue it in another name. But most airlines will not. Smith said that American Airlines would reissue the ticket in an extreme case, for instance, if a passenger for health reasons would never be able to fly again. But generally, an unused nonrefundable ticket can be used only as a form of payment toward a new ticket for the original owner.
I got caught in the wrong-name fix. I was traveling to San Francisco on a companion ticket obtained by a friend as a benefit for getting an American Airlines Citibank Aadvantage card. The terms required that I travel with my friend, Rita Jensen. The reservations were made in May. When the tickets arrived, her $421 ticket read "Jensen/Rita" and my $3 one read "Jensen/Wade," which we presumed to mean I had to travel with her.
Between that time and the day of our trip, Aug. 31, Flight 800 crashed and the new rules went into effect. When we arrived at Kennedy International Airport in New York with an hour to spare, and I showed my photo identification, the gate agent would not let me board. She insisted that the other ticket had to be used by a man named Wade Jensen, and she asked twice where Ms. Jensen's husband was.
Neither Ms. Jensen, a legal-affairs columnist, nor I mentioned that we were journalists.
Five minutes before flight time, I decided that the only hope of salvaging my free ticket was to board the flight with my friends and argue later. The agent said she would sell me a ticket at the last-minute price. I signed without putting my glasses on, and spent a truly miserable flight when I saw I had signed an American Express slip for $1,757 to get to San Francisco and back.
On Sept. 13, after my return, I began the battle for reimbursement by writing American Airlines (again, not identifying myself as a journalist). American eventually wrote that it would credit my American Express card in the full amount, but as of Dec. 3, my second billing period since the trip, it had not appeared.
The lesson is to check airline documents and be sure the names match your identification. If not, get the airline to reissue the ticket.
Even brides of one day should not try to use tickets in a married name if the passport is still in a previous name. Delta held up a honeymoon for 24 hours on this one.