TSA name rules on Airline tickets

[JoeCathyAngelina]

The rule is; when boarding with your Airline ticket your name must exactly match letter for letter your Government issued photo I.D. (drivers license or passport).
Last April my wife's ticket didn't have her middle initial on it, her drivers license does have her middle initial. TSA didn't say anything or do anything about the missing initial.
This year again, I didn't think to put her middle initial on the ticket and her drivers license has her middle initial.

Has anybody had any problems recently about the name on the ticket and the name on a license, missing middle initials, miss spelled names...

Thanks,
Joe

 

[dioxide45]

This isn't true, not yet at least. AirTran does collect the middle name/initial when you make a reservation, and that middle name/initial does show up on the reservation, but it still doesn't print out on the boarding pass. At least not as of last week. We had no issues passing through TSA security at MCO.

 

[candy0730]

My husbands drivers license states "Steven F XXXXXXXX" but when we flew a few weeks ago his ticket just said "Steve" and nobody blinked an eye.

 

[Horace Horsecollar]

The rule is; when boarding with your Airline ticket your name must exactly match letter for letter your Government issued photo I.D. (drivers license or passport).

For most airline reservations, that's not true... yet.

But it will be true in the future.

The TSA is slowly phasing in a new program called Secure Flight. When implemented, the name on your airline reservation must match the name on your government-issued ID.

For details, see http://www.tsa.gov/what_we_do/layers/secureflight/

Different airlines are on different schedules. Most airline reservation systems don't even have fields for a middle name or middle initial yet.

For example, American Airlines just began collecting full passengers names on a few days ago on September 15, 2009. American Airlines passengers also must provide their date of birth, their sex, and, if applicable, a Known Traveler Number and/or a Redress Number. Passengers with older reservations don't have to worry about it yet.

If you weren't asked for your exact name (matching your ID), date of birth, and sex when you bought your ticket, you don't have to worry about the new rules yet.