Secure Flight: Stricter Rules for Boarding Aircraft

The TSA is getting ready to institute new rules. In the near future passengers will be required to give their birth date, sex, and their full name. The name on the ticket MUST match exactly the name on the photo ID you will be using, so you will need to be very careful when booking a reservation. The new program is called Secure Flight and takes responsibility for checking passenger names against "watch lists" from the airlines to the TSA. Only passengers who are cleared by the TSA will be given boarding passes.

The TSA says the program will improve the quality of the watch lists and will reduce the misidentification of innocent travellers who are mistakenly placed on the "no-fly" list. The new rules are set to begin first on domestic flights this year and on international flights late in the year. The TSA says the information will be held for no more than seven days. It will cost the airlines an additional $630 million to reprogram their reservations systems.