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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.)
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.
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.
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?
> 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).
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.
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.
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.
