BBC Journalist Flies Under Wrong Identity On Iberia From Heathrow

Sorry, too much missing from this story to make sense

And how did she get through the security check?

@ Joe -- At Heathrow, security generally just requires scanning or showing your boarding pass. There's no verification of the boarding pass matching the travel document, as far as I know.

@ Michael -- Well, we know everything that happened from the passenger's side, and this is a pretty reputable person who has reached out to every party imaginable. The only thing missing is that the airline is refusing to speak about it, for "security" reasons.

Back in 1990, I replaced a colleague on a business trip and just used his ticket. Times have changed.

Well, in Germany you don't need an ID to fly. Not at security nor at the gate. Just the boarding pass.

In the UK it's a bit strange because they check ID at the Gate.

Did she look a bit like the other person and the picture looked similar?

Face recognition electronic boarding gate would not allow this to happen

And the plane landed safely as usual for these kind of circumstances. Goes to show passenger identity checks aren’t needed to keep a flight secure.

The name/name sequence on a passport need not match the names on the ticketed booking to get checked in on a booking pulled up manually by check-in agent. After a reservation is pulled up by a check-in agent, passport info can be manually loaded anyway even if the biodata/MRZ names wouldn’t load in as an exact match in names and sequence for the name fields in the ticketed booking record being used for check-in and fly.

And once the boarding pass shows as docs ok, gate agents tend to accept for boarding that which airline check-in agents and/or airline conformance agents have already accepted.

Really Ben, a BBC journalist who is actually “Reputable”? …. not this century old bean …. 🙂
No doubt the thought Police will be knocking upon my door very soon.

Facial recognition technology doesn’t necessarily preclude the ability to travel by getting checked in on a booking under someone else’s name & PNR.

In other words GUWonder …. human error?

I would like to point out that this is flat-out wrong. I am MUC-based and have had my ID checked plenty times, when flying both LHG and non-LHG airlines.

That's not wrong. As long as you stay in the Schengen Area no one checks IDs. In MUC, too. Where does LH check IDs in MUC if you don't see an agent?

Ben is correct.
Whereas in the USA, ID is required to enter the departure area, but not always a boarding pass.
(I was very grateful for this a few months ago at DFW)

In other words, READ ID and other identity verifications are all your government (aka 3rd party outside contractor with weak security) spying on you under the excuse of national security.

Ironically for someone using the name "Anonymous".
Face recognition electronic boarding gate would not allow you to remain anonymous.

It’s actually more common than you may think although versus the number of people flying daily, minuscule. The main issue is if there’s an incident the “ correct “ passenger isn’t on the passenger name list. There are also cases of passengers being boarded on the wrong airline to a complete different destination.

I know Heathrow quite well and have mentioned multiple times to BA the security leak around passengers identity. Let me explain:
- the gate agent checks the name on your PRINTED (which could be forged) boarding pass against your passport name
- then, you just scan your boarding pass, which effectively marks the passenger encoded in the QR code as boarded

Anyone with bad intentions could very easily change the name on the printed boarding pass and travel under someone else's identity

I'm not suggesting this is what happened here, but I'm smiling when I here the airline saying "we don't understand how this is even possible".

Things like this happen more often than you think. Had a coworker make it all the way BOS-MIA-GRU without a Brazilian visa (was in his old passport, which he forgot to bring). Every AA agent failed to check his passport/mistook his Bolivian visa for Brazil

When he was inevitably denied entry to Brazil, AA had to pay fines and flew him back in J since they failed to follow the proper protocols

Interesting.
Easyjet, Wizzair and Ryanair all require photo ID for all flights, which they match to boarding card at the gate.
Passport always acceptable; Schengen National ID card for within Schengen, sometimes driving licences for domestic.
Those airlines probably want to make procedures as consistent as possible, so "Always check ID to board pass at gate"

German regulations may well not require airlines to generally check ID for domestic flights.
And Lufthansa may decide to have different procedures for domestic flights.
International intra-Schengen largely does require ID at the moment: 13 of the 29 countries currently have Temporary Reintroduction of Border Control: https://home-affairs.ec.europa.eu/policies/schengen/schengen-area/temporary-reintroduction-border-control_en

(I did once use a Schengen residence card departing the UK for Schengen without being challenged - I doubt most gate agents could distinguish an ID-card from a residence card in a foreign language)

This seems to be a case of human error(s), but it’s not always human error when the name on the ticketed PNR isn’t an exact match in name and sequence as that on a passport and/or ID card that is accepted for a manual check-in, boarding & travel.

I fly international intra-Schengen flights very frequently — something on the order this month of people going to and from school. Whether there is an ID check for me on my intra-Schengen cross-border flights depends on the airline and/or route and/or baggage situation. On some of my most frequented such routes, there is never an ID check for me; on other routes or with some other airlines, there usually is an ID check hitting me at the gates.

I prefer flying on routes and airlines where it’s easy to fly on a ticket for passenger Mickey Mousse.

No ID check to use the main security checkpoints at LHR terminals to get airside. A boarding pass is what provides access to those security checkpoints.

Why would it matter if she looked similar to the other person? She would present her own ID or passport and surely she’d look vaguely like herself…
What’s more interesting is whether there was any similarity in the names.
There might have been some bug in her booking to begin with, as she couldn’t check in online or at the kiosk.
In the end she was simply mis-ID‘d by the agent. Happened to me before as well, when I was told I had already checked in (which I hadn’t). In my case someone with a similar name was mis-ID‘d for myself. Occasionally happens in hotels too.

As far as security is concerned, I don’t see this as a big deal as everybody is screened for dangerous items which you may not bring onboard. If you bring a fake name or not is quite irrelevant for the safety of the flight.

@Betty LH checks IDs during boarding. Even with a digital boarding pass i more often than not have to show my ID. Same applies to AMS or CDG.

Also, you seem to forget that travelling to/from the UK to EU now requires a passport. So while it is possible that no one checks your ID on domestic flights, she absolutely had to show her passport when leaving and entering the UK.

At the boarding gate!

I flew out of MUC dozens of time and no one ever checked my ID at the gate when departing on an internal Lufthansa Group flight. They do check IDs for external (non-Schengen flights) for obvious reasons but otherwise you usually just use self-service boarding and never even speak to anyone who could verify your ID.

LCCs are another matter, those do tend to do ID checks for revenue protection.

Still very much possible for a large portion of intra-EU flights 🙂 DACH, Scandinavia, Netherlands, Poland, Baltics are just few examples where no ID checks exist for internal flights (to Schengen). But officially it's not allowed and if you get caught, you may be in trouble.

About ten years ago I flew Garuda from Jakarta to Yogyakarta with a friend. We checked in together at the counter and got our boarding passes.

We went to the gate, which was crowded with passengers from another flight already in it. When we were informed of a flight delay, we exited the gate and went to the lounge.

After a good while, we went back to the gate and this time, there were passengers from another TWO flights in it. People were seated on the chairs, on the floor, etc. when it was about time to board, I fished for my boarding pass and couldn’t find it. Panicked, I searched my pockets, left the gate to search the lounge and had no choice but to return to the counter for a replacement boarding pass.

I produced my ID again and got the replacement and raced back to the gate. My friend had already boarded and the gate was almost empty.

When the gate agent tried to scan my pass, she got an error. She tried again and got the error again. After four tries, she gave up and waved me on board.

I found my friend on board and took the seat next to him. Only then did we realise that I had actually originally lost HIS pass and he had boarded using MY pass. No wonder the gate agent got errors when she tried to scan my pass “again”.

Worryingly she waved me on and even though another agent came on to check if my friend had boarded (the system didn’t record that he had), they simply accepted a simple vocal confirmation instead of checking IDs.

It could have been anyone sitting in our two seats the way things were!

I was flying YYZ-ORD-BMI, and the ORD AA agent handed me a boarding pass for ORD-MSP for someone else, and I flew to MSP without noticing it! Human error happens.

This woman writes that the person named on her boarding pass doesn't even exist because she can't find any social media accounts with that name.

I'd better sign up for some social media accounts because I apparently currently do not exist.

@Eskimo

CBS Rabbit Hole irl.

@Betty I am not sure if I misunderstood your previous message. I don't think I've taken a domestic flight within Germany in the past decade, so I'm not sure what the regulations or LH's common practices look like on that end... but having taken quite a few international intra-Schengen LH flights within the past few years, I can say with certainty that I have had my ID checked more often than not by gate agents. This has also been the case when flying IB, UX and KL ex-MUC (all within Schengen).

Now, it's fair to say that there's a possibility that gate agents might not check your ID upon boarding (and this is especially true with LH), but to say that you don't need an ID (or passport) when travelling, even if it's intra-Schengen, is wrong because you can indeed be subject to an ID verification by gate agents. I only wanted to point this out in case someone read your original comment and thought to themselves that they can actually travel without an ID, only to find an unpleasant surprise waiting to unfold at the airport 🙂

As for UK-bound flights, I believe you have to go through passport control (or e-gates if you have a EU passport) and they will also check your passport at the gate.

At least departing Germany you don't need to match passport and boarding pass in general. Only when it's required by the destination country.
Once boarded with the boarding pass of my mother accidentally.
Of course, you always need to be able to show an ID, but it is not regularly checked within Schengen and especially not matching your boarding pass.

Classic Heathrow story. I loathe that airport.

Also protip: never, and I mean *never* lose anything on a plane or in the airport. They don't have airport police (shocking but a state of affairs in the UK in general), their lost and found has a "wait 2 weeks" policy before they even look, and nobody will file a missing property report because the UK has no central way to track lost property.

I haven’t ever had my ID checked at countless flights from both FRA or MUC, never…

My son recently flew LAX-YVR on his friend's ticket, but with his own passport. Nobody noticed the name mismatch. Had no problem at biometric boarding gates at TBIT.

I don't know who you fly with ex LHR but every flight I've been on they've asked for ID and boarding pass at the gate, and in particular BA. And same going through passport control just before security. In the US I've never been asked for passport ID at the gate.

it also happened to me: I flew on SQ from NRT-SIN and SIN-MNL. In NRT I was given 2 boarding passes with the name of a Chinese Woman. I did not look at it myself. In SIN I went to the Lounge and the first time they asked me for my Star Gold Card. (Usually it is printed on the Boarding Pass) Only when I tried to board the SIN-MNL flight, the scan sounded an alarm. I was a bit upset because I had lost my preferred seat on that flight.

Back in 2012 I had the privilege to be visiting NYC as Hurricane Sandy approached. When I realized what was happening and that the airports were closing at 700pm (?) I raced to EWR to get any flight I could out of the area. (I was returning home to BKK, but I just wanted out of NYC and would patch up the ticketing later.) As you can imagine, the airport was a mess, and the agent working to get me on a EWR-CVG flight as a standby, was frazzled and in the end handed me a boarding pass with a Chinese name (I'm a midwestern white boy...) and told me to just get on. I did. And was thankful.

I had a similar problem with Lufhansa in October of last year!
They wrongly accused me of not having traveled on booked flight and subsequently canceled the return booked trip!
It took me 3 months of tens and tens of emails to proof my good faith and eventually to receive a duly diserved compensation,so recognizing their fault!
Very distrustful situation!

The reporter is just as culpable for not looking at the boarding pass in detail. Maybe she did note the initial error, but was desperate for a story! Therefore, played along to see how far she got. If challenged anywhere along the way, she would use the excuse of, “I sooo sorry!”
As a reporter, I feel she’s a bit clueless to overlook details.

A few months ago someone else's itinerary showed up on my Aadvantage account. I contacted aa multiple times and was given the runaround each time and they never removed it. I had full control over some other persons itenerary and could have canceled his flight etc. So weird stuff does happen..

There are many checkpoints such as security, etc. I am not sure how she could have really boarded the plane under a different person. I would have thought someone would have caught it beforehand.

I had something similar last year, but not on any of my airline accounts. Somebody in the UK entered my email when checking out and I got the PNR, ticket number, name of the person flying, everything. It was done through a travel company so I reached back out to them to try and contact the person and get it corrected, but 6 months later I was still getting those emails with the flight information for flight time adjustments.

"The UK has no central way to track lost property" might be true, but lost property at Gatwick works brillantly.