I fly alot, both for business and pleasure. But I’ve never used the self-check in computer because I’ve always had luggage to be checked.
But yesterday I was only going to be gone for the day; I flew up to Minneapolis in the early morning, flew home at night, so I had no luggage to check.
To use the self serve machine, all one does is slide their credit card into the slot, your name pops up, and you print out your boarding pass.
When I went through security, they only demanded to see my boarding pass, NOT my photo i.d… That’s never happened to me since 9/11! Wasn’t that a breech of security proceedure? After all, anyone can get a credit card. I personally know a guy that got one in his dogs name (no shit!).
What’s the deal here? When I started to take my driver license out of my wallet, the TSA guy says “no, no. I only need to see your boarding pass.” I bought the ticket over the internet. Since when is a credit card valid i.d.?
I’ve always had to show my license when I actually boarded the plane. If they did that, then not showing your license at the metal detectors is no more of a breach (note spelling - “security breeches” would be bulletproof pants) than anyone else, however they got their boarding pass, not showing theirs.
In the last several months, I have always been asked to present ID when getting my boarding pass and going thru the metal detector, but not once upon boarding a domestic flight. Something sounds odd about not checking IDs at the security checkpoint…
By the way, you can use the kiosks to get boarding passes AND to check luggage. After the boarding pass is printed out, the luggage ticket will be printed behind the counter, and an employee will call out your name to collect the baggage. Saves a LOT of time over standing in line.
FYI
At no time, anywhere in the airport, was I asked to produce I.D… Not at the security check point, not while getting on the plane, never. Only my boarding pass.
(this was in Milwaukee. On my flight back I had to show my I.D. twice).
That is odd. Usually I’m checking bags when I use the kiosks and I have to show the ID when they tag the bags. When I haven’t checked bags, the ID has been checked at the prescreener in front of security, the one that makes sure you have a boarding pass.
If no one checked your ID in the airport, I’d say it was a security breech.
Each airline or airport has its own little variations of the security rules, though. But someone should have checked it.
They should have checked your license against your boarding pass when you went through security.
I wonder how often this happens, you could report it to a news station if it’s fairly often, they’d love to have fun with that. Remember just after 9/11, when they snuck all kinds of things (scissors, knifes etc) into the court house. They even showed one of the metal detectors wasn’t even plugged in.
That’s what I though. But as I was pulling my D.L. out of my wallet I was told I didn’t need to show it.
It depends on the airport and the training of the “gatekeeper” TSA people. They seem to follow decidedly different rules at different places, and this lack of consistency seems to me to be the largest security problem.
Almost all require photo ID to enter the “secured” area. However, often I have not been asked for anything other than my boarding pass. At one airport they were randomly asking for ID. And then of course you have the differences at the gate itself - many ask for photo ID again at the gate, some don’t.
Airline guy here.
A lot of the details are classified, but the short version is the TSA changes the rules constantly and they are, by design, not consistent from location to location.
The fact you can’t detect a pattern is good; it makes the bad guys uncertain what they’ll encounter on any given day in any given place.
IMHO the rules have drifted away from lots of overt feel-good BS that passengers can see but which doesn’t really do much, and drifted towards more behind-the-scenes stuff which offers less hassle and more actual security.
This all sounds like a pretty logical explination. Thanks. 
I hope you smiled when they took you picture. 
your picture. :smack: