Hacker News Reader

Comment by glitchc | Hacker News Reader

It wasn't really a hack. It's standard policy for gate-checkers to confirm that the name on the boarding pass matches the name and photo on a piece of ID carried by the person. That's the rule for domestic flights. He took advantage of the gate crew slacking off on the job. Props to him for trying, but nothing is broken in the system. A piece of govt. ID is mandatory to fly domestically.

View on HN

I have never had my ID checked at the gate on a domestic flight, only by TSA at security or at the ticketing counter when checking bags.

That doesn't mean it's not required, it just means airline staff aren't doing their jobs. Here is United's page, this is standard policy for all domestic flights: https://www.united.com/en/us/fly/travel/trip-planning/us-tra...

Edit: And here's the TSA notice clearly stating the policy - https://www.tsa.gov/travel/security-screening/identification

Those pages both refer to the security checkpoint, not the gate agent prior to boarding. I've never had my ID checked while boarding domestically in the US.

I used to get my ID checked at the gate occasionally. But that was in the before times, when there was no id or boarding pass required to get through security.

I'm sure there's some nefarious thing you can do where two people collude to swap boarding passes after security, but I don't believe it's worth the effort for airlines to try to prevent that. Maybe something with discounts or mileage accumulation; but it'll be a big pain if there's anything out of the schedule.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com