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Comment by rmorey | Hacker News Reader

Pretty funny, and makes me think the ticketing system pretty much worked. Yeah he was able to get on the plane, but the system correctly flagged the second time the pass was scanned, and once seats started filling up he was discovered

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He was only discovered once the plane was taxiing, which doesn't sound like it pretty much worked - if the flight hadn't been full, he may well have got away with it.

which is to say, this isn't the first time he's done that.

Except in this case, it didn't?

1. The ID should be checked along (and preferably) before the boarding pass is scanned. Most airlines do this; so this is an oversight from the agent to "quickly" let people through.

2. The agent was also lazy to investigate the situation and just assumed it was a "computer glitch". Again, probably breaking procedure.

This could have been worse but I wonder what's the point of all the security theater that the US goes through when simple security procedures are not strictly followed.

No one checks id on domestic flights in the U.S. at the gate.

That's my point. The ID is usually checked in other countries for internal flights. It's either a missing policy item or an oversight from the crew.

It's not really worth the trade-off of slowing down boarding time by 2x just for the 1 in a million chance of someone sneaking onto a plane.

It is worth in the rest of the world. And besides, I've been there and it's not 2x. Everyone has their ID ready and it just takes a glance to check.

Worth it how?

On international flights, if an airline transports somebody who is rejected by the destination for not having the proper visas etc, they are heavily fined. So airlines are strongly incentivized to triple-check passengers and their documentation.

That's not a concern with a domestic US flight. If that's the reason why checking ID's is 'worth it', then it's not worth it.

Worth it as in there's literally no cost to doing it and it prevents unidentified people from boarding.

As funny as I find the anecdote, I would prefer any airline knowing who's on my plane. Wouldn't you?

Not really, no, it's just one more thing to go wrong and for me to have to dig out of my pockets. I'm happy for things to move along more efficiently, airplane processes are slow and annoying enough as it is. I don't care if some other guy got on the wrong flight, intentionally or not. That's his business.

Unless the ticket was bought by a stolen identity and then the boarding pass handed over to a person on a terrorist watchlist who boards with his genuine, mismatching ID

That could be another 9-11. Worth the trade off ?

I don't think the watchlists really do anything. Checking your ID against the boarding pass is just yield management for the airlines. (Compare the cost of a full fare economy ticket 45 minutes before the flight to what some desperate person would sell it to you for, knowing that they either use it or lose it.)

They check id and boarding pass at security before entering the terminal.

The don't actually check boarding passes at security in the US in my recent experience. Though your ID may be tied to your ticket in the computer system in some manner.

How did the person on a terrorist watch-list make it through security in the first place, and why wouldn't that work for the actual boarding?

How do you get 2x? I'd say you slow down boarding by something between 0.00x% and 0.0y%, since it takes an extra couple of seconds to do that, at least with the German system.

I'm intrigued about the system you are envisioning that creates the extra 100% delay.

It's not like the plane is going to leave earlier if the queue is processed faster.

Experience says otherwise; I routinely take use domestic flights that leave the gate early and take off early because they finished boarding early.

Maybe so, but that has nothing to do with the gate check-in.

The bottleneck is at boarding the plane and seating. Passengers stand in line on the jetway after they check in at the gate. The only reason gatecheck is rushed is to reduce amount of staff-time required at the airport. It doesn't get the plane boarded more quickly.

In Turkey, they are explicitly disallowed to do so, and has been the case even before 9/11, due to how Turkish transport licensure system works.

Also, this assumes the checks are actually performed - which is a compute intensive operation for a human (names in various languages, etc). I once accidentally swapped passports with my wife, and we both boarded without questions. We dont share last names, and, of course, dont look much alike. Its bad security to rely on tired people doing annoying repeatable tasks where the risk of something going wrong is so low.

Security has a cost. Not just with computers but with airports and society as a whole. Making everything trustless and bulletproof encumbers everything and wastes many resources, including the most precious one - time.

I suspect project insight from Israel (lavender?) will be deployed in the US in the coming years and then the rest of the world shortly after that.

It will be easier to keep us all safe once it's widely available. /s

Safe from what? The problems we already don’t have?

Safe from all the highly effective plane-based attacks that have occurred since 9-11. Such as...you know, that one? And all the others, too.

Boarding time is a big factor in the cost structure of airlines. If they have to check ID of everyone who boards, it’s a lot slower. And in fact European airlines have a much slower turnaround time than Southwest. There’s already an ID check before you get airside, so another check during boarding is not needed for security. If all it accomplishes is revealing this edge case, which can be deterred by detection and enforcement after the fact, is it really worth making everyone wait and increasing costs?

Many airports I have been through do a facial scan during the first ID check and then have cameras at any other point the boarding pass is needed. If your face doesn't match the one stored against your boarding pass an hour or two ago then you have to seek assistance from an employee who will hopefully find out why that is.

I find it a bit strange that the concept of multilayered security would need explaining on HN, of all places.

If somebody was trying to do something serious, they’d have some kind of ID that would get them through the actual security checkpoint. It’s only this bizarre scheme (that didn’t even work) where checking ID again would matter.

If we’re making an analogy to internet security, it’s like when websites use JavaScript to disable standard input into the password field. Just a pointless waste of everyone’s time.

> And in fact European airlines have a much slower turnaround time than Southwest

Comparing apples to apples, Ryanair (low cost, optimised to hell, 737 only, 3rd in the world by amount of passengers carried in front of Southwest in 4th for 2022) has a turnaround time of around 25 minutes, meanwhile Southwest's is around 35 minutes (official figures of what the airline says for both).

Ryan air will speed that up by just not deplaning passengers and flying back with the same load.

Ryanair got there by emulating American operators! https://simpleflying.com/how-southwest-inspired-the-ryanair-...

I find it hard to believe that paying $50 for a even 30 more minutes of staff time at boarding is going to break the cost structure.

It’s more about how many planes you can get through the expensive, scarce gates you have in a day. Those staff could be boarding another batch of paying customers instead of checking IDs.

It's not an "oversight from the crew". Checking ID at the gate is not a thing in the US for domestic flights, and that is a very good thing for boarding time overhead.

ID isn't checked for internal flights within New Zealand, and I note other posts here saying it's not for Australia as well. European seems 50/50. So doesn't seem like a consistent policy to check ID for interal flights.

Did you know that your boarding pass is a life insurance?

Back in the 90s in Argentina, nobody checked id for national flights. Was common to give ticket to a colleague were missing a meeting (this particular route was almost like a bus)

Then a plane crashed at takeoff and everyone died. Some people got lucky because they gave the ticket to a colleague.

Turns the family of said colleagues could not get a death certificate, recover bodies or get insurance as they “officially” weren’t on the plane nor insured.

Incidentally the theme of a very nice dutch song, guy dies in rental car, burns out, wrong person identified, person is suddenly free, enjoys is, but is he brave, is he fleeing? Emotional ride for person. One of my fav songs, some beautiful sentences like "... And of all his boyhood dreams, only growing old was achieved..." [0] Over the years/decades of their career these artists return to the story of Herman (the main person). Absolutely beautiful (ultra-Dutch videoclip btw, it's how my grandparents lived).

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZkbhA1NcTM

> This could have been worse but I wonder what's the point of all the security theater that the US goes through when simple security procedures are not strictly followed.

But he did regularly pass through security. So not really a security breach IMO.

Assuming the flight crew does a passenger count or checks seats that should be unoccupied, even a non-full flight would result in getting caught.

Flight crew have other things to do then count 200-odd squirming people and are flight attendants supposed to memorize unoccupied seats or carry a clipboard up and down the aisles?

A head count is often done with a simple mechanical clicker by the flight attendants right at the plane's doors and/or during the check walk looking for seat belts and unstowed luggage during taxiing. It takes no additional time at all.

Any pilot should have an actual count of the souls on board, it can become a question of life and death in an emergency situation. Would you want to be the one left behind trapped in a burning wreck because "all 200" passengers on the list have been declared clear of it - with the blind passenger taking your spot?

I'm aware this is a made up scenario that probably would never occur even in the event. Take it more as food for thought why knowing the SOB might be more than unnecessary theatre.

I'm really astonished by a lot of responses in this thread, seeing how people that are forced to take off their shoes while waiting in line ay the airport keep on defending willful negligence at seemingly every other point in the process.

Yes, having a full count of people on board seems like a low effort necessary action to be taking especially for emergency scenarios. I assume if the passenger count doesn't match the expected count, especially in the case of a double passenger scan it should flag a more extensive audit.

That's why ID's get checked at the boarding gate, so this trick wouldn't have been possible at many airports around europe at least. Not checking ID's seems somewhat irresponsible from a security perspective.

How is that irresponsible for security? Everyone on the secure side of the airport has been secured in the same way. ID checkin at gate is revenue management, not security.

Indeed, and my ID is rarely checked when travelling within the Schengen area. It's up to airline policy.

It would have worked in Europe just fine because just like in US no one checks IDs on domestic flights. At least here in UK if you're flying inside the UK then no one looks at your ID at any point, you just need a ticket(flew like this literally last month, at no point has anyone asked me for any id)

In France I've flown Paris Toulouse and they still check your ID at the gate.

That's probably an airline thing though. I've flown Newcastle to Belfast and at no point anyone checked my ID, just the ticket, even at the gate.

I've always been checked for id, even for local flights as well (SXB, LYS, ETZ, LIS, BCN, MLH/BZL/EAP). Airlines were Air France and EasyJet.

MLH/BZL/EAP is fun because you kinda keep going back and forth across borders a few times as you walk around, and depending on where you "come from" the destination country can have slightly different requirements for entering upon arrival (which is checked at the gate on departure, I did get a random customs check on arrival once when crossing the swiss/french border). Not a problem on the happy path but could get hairy if you get into trouble I guess.

I think in France it may depend on "plan Vigipirate" levels as well.

IDs are rarely checked here in EU, why so? Or maybe rarely is exaggerated, but 50/50 at least. What security issue arises besides security theater, that's a different checkpoint.

What I do not understand, what is creative here? If he had a buddy pass, and was denied because of a full plane, how could he hope for an empty seat? That sounds super dumb?

2nd I don't understand: The scanning at the gate doesn't check for tickets scanned twice? It marks people off, not? I thought that is how they call sometimes missing people out? So why were there no problems when he or the real owner scanned the ticket a second time?

1 - when the first flight was full he tried to get on another flight that he didn't know would be full.

2 - a person boarding after him was "denied" because her passport had already been scanned but they let her board anyway.

It's in the video embedded in the article.

I've literally never had my ID checked at the gate. Australia and US domestic, Australia to US, Asia, and Europe.

Yeah at this point it is much easier to exploit human flaws than computer flaws.

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