I’m mainly looking for personal experience stories regarding this.
My friend travels on a weekly basis via plane to various parts of the country. Yesterday, he called me and asked if I remembered him having his wallet the night before. He said that he thought he had lost it. I called the restaurant that we were at the night before and they had it, luckily.
I got to thinking. Lets say I fly to New York for the weekend, and while I’m there, I lose my wallet, which contains my picture ID. What would happen when I went back to the airport to check in for my flight back home and couldn’t produce a picture ID? Would the airline make an exception? Would they accept a work ID badge? If I was mugged, would they accept a police report? Anyone have any personal experience with this?
This would (hopefully) never happen to me since I always carry my passport when I travel, as well as my DL.
This happened to me a few years ago–I got my wallet stolen while I was in New Orleans for a business conference. I did file a police report, but the paperwork they gave me was really just a half sheet of paper with the report number on it.
I had my boyfriend express mail me my expired license. They should be able to let you board without photo ID, but you have to go through a more rigorous screening process. Same thing if you board with expired identification, which happened to me another time.
My fiancee had that happen to her a while back (but still post-9/11). She lost her driver’s license while in California. Her work had a photocopy of her driver’s license on file from when she started working there (although the one copied was now expired). They faxed the photocopy to the airline. There may have been some more complications (I think her original airline wouldn’t accept the fax, but transferred her ticket to another airline that would), and I think a TSA agent was also involved helping her work things out with the airlines, but she did get to eventually fly home.
We had a similar problem when my 18-year-old son was flying to Pheonix, since he does not have a valid driver’s license and hadn’t managed to get any other picture ID. Delta allowed him to board with just his birth certificate and social security card. US Airways also insisted on seeing his expired learner’s permit plus put him through extra security to make sure my red-headed, freckle-faced boy wasn’t a terrorist.
Gotcha all beat. My husband was visiting Moscow when someone stole his U.S. Passport. This was during the month when the USSR was dissolving. He had quite a problem getting a new one and the required visa. Years later, during another trip, he was again crossing an international border and was asked why he, a U.S. citizen, born in Ukraine, had a passport and visa issued in Moscow.
Upon relocation to TX 3 years ago I was in the process of getting a TX driver license. In that process I had to give them my Illinois license and they replaced it with a temporary paper license (no photo ID) until my real one would show up in the mail some weeks later. At the time I was traveling frequently for work so I had the DMV hold off while I called Southwest Airlines to see if I would still be able to board without a picture ID. According to them I would be allowed but would probably have to go through extra security measures (as mentioned above). The Southwest agent I talked to equated it to being on vacation and losing your wallet. According to her they could not refuse you access, just that you would have to submit to more thorough security searching.
When I was in TX volunteering for the Red Cross after hurricanes Katrina and Rita, my wallet with all of my money, credit cards and ID was stolen from the church that was serving as a “staff shelter,” a place for the volunteers to stay. I was allowed to fly using the police report as ID. You definately have to be wanded and they’ll check your luggage a little more closely than just running it through the machine, but it wasn’t too bad. Just allow a little extra time.
I lost my license in the Denver Airport in 2000. They didn’t give me a hard time about getting on the connecting flight to California, and when I got there, they had me fill out a missing item report, and I used that, plus all my other ID (ss card, credit cards) to get me back on the plane. I’ve wondered what would happen since 2001 if that happened.
I forgot my ID (driver’s license and I’m a US citizen so I don’t bother carrying that passport around) for a domestic flight I was getting on in approximately September. I didn’t have time to go back to Pasadena from LAX to get my ID and the only thing I had on me was my federal ID badge (the one I wear to work) but it’s TOTALLY shady looking because only HQ gets the proper fbi-ish looking ones. I hear if you’ve been working for the feds a long time you might also have a more reasonable looking one but most of us newly hired field/regional staff get these really shoddy ones printed on the office computers (despite this, it happens to be federal property). Anyway, it’s not real looking, if you want to know the truth, though it does have a photograph. It basically looks like an ID badge from the Dunder Mifflin website, very tragic.
I informed the ticket counter person of the situation and they did let me on the flight but I was flagged for extra security going and coming. They did the full pat down, asked me some questions and opened all my carry on items and pawed through them.
I was told that you can get on the flight without any form of ID but that this is the procedure involved. You have to basically march up to the ticket counter person and tell them, though, and they’ll flag you for extra security with a special code when they issue your boarding pass.
I was pretty grateful they let me fly at all as I really needed to be on that flight (I was going home for a religious holiday). It should be noted that while I am American, I’m of South Asian descent, so I don’t think they really discriminate or anything.
If this happens in a foreign country, you go to your countrys embassy, and they will issue an emergency passport. You’ll have to get a real one when you get back home.
If your country does not have an embassy there, you go to the embassy of the next best thing. So, if there was no norwegian embassy, I would try the embassy of any other nordic country. Failing that, I would work my way through continental EU nations. Someone has an embassy with diplomatic ties to wherever you live. May take a while, but generally, they’ll help you. (I’m imagining I’m on the other side of the world here, where travelling by land is not really an option.)
Another chiming in on the “extra security check”. A few years ago I was flying to Las Vegas and when I got to the airport I realized that I had left my photo ID sitting on my dresser. There was no time to go back home and still make my flight; they allowed me to check my luggage (I don’t know if they tagged it for extra inspection) and when I got to security they took me aside, wanded me and checked my carry-on, and let me through. Once I got to Vegas, I called a friend who had a key to my house and had my ID overnighted to me at my hotel.
Hmph. All these stories of people flying with only extra security are burning me up! A few years ago I was flying domestically out of Denver (I think it was Frontier) and realized I had left my driver’s license at my parents house, two hours away. I was told I couldn’t fly, end of story. I had to stay an extra night in Denver while my parents drove there to return my license. Needless to say they weren’t very happy and neither was I.
You’re probably right, but I could have sworn that the specific airlines require picture ID "for security purposes’ when flying.
This is off the subject a bit, but…
Several years ago, it was very common to see ads in the newspaper that said something like this: “help, i’ve got a ticket on United Airlines from SFO to JKF on 2/14 but can’t make it. I paid 400 bucks but will sell for 200”. You just don’t see that anymore. It was my understanding that the airlines began requiring picture ID to put a stop to this practice.
No airlines that I’m familiar with have this policy… though my experience is limited to United, American, US Air, Continental, Delta, JetBlue and AirTran. It’s possible, and I can’t say I know the legality of requiring a passenger to have a photo ID when TSA doesn’t require one, but I’ve never seen it enforced. YMMV, as SaharaTea found out.
I got to the airport a couple of weeks ago and was in the line to go thru security and got out my wallet to get my driver’s license. It wasn’t in there. I got out of line sort of panicy and called mrsin whom I was meeting at the end of my flight. Told him I couldn’t find my id. He had a :smack: moment looked in his wallet and low and behold there was my license. We test drove a car the week before and the salesman gave both of our ids back to mrsin.
I went to the counter and explained what happened to the agent. She laughed and said stuff like that happens all the time. Mrsin was on the phone and offered to fax a copy of my id to them, but she said, “No big deal they’ll just give you the extra security check.” And that’s what happened. I didn’t have to show any id at all. :dubious: Very strange.
This happened to me post 9-11. I can’t remember the exact date, but (A) it was the day after they found Chandra Levy’s body and (B) they still had the National Guard in Newark & Jacksonville FL airports.
I left my wallet at my dad’s house - about a 75 minute drive from the Jax airport. I had my ticket, but no other ID. The reason I remember the Chandra Levy thing is because I didn’t even have change to buy a newspaper to read about it.
Anyway - I went right to the ticket desk & explained my dilemma. I have to say they (Continental) were very polite & understanding. I did have to submit to the “Full Monty” of security checks, including a pat down and the inspection of my luggage, but at that point, they could have run my granny panties up a flag pole in the food court if it would have enabled me to be able to fly.
