in: Cristina; Cristina > 2008-06-23;
| # Posted 2008-06-23 19:00:00 | |
| barb: | David's on the no fly list although lately they haven't been hassling him about it. For a couple years, they'd have to speak to supervisors and so on - and make jokes about David being just a kid and also dangerous. This usually brought David to tears. He is very sensitive. I have the idea that when he gets to be in his late teens it could be more of a problem, if there still is a List. |
| # Posted 2008-06-23 21:01:59 | |
| feet: | Ugh. I guess the added nuisance of flying will cut a few O trips off the schedule, unfortunately. (And you might have to switch to airlines with assigned seating, I guess; not being able to check in online with Southwest would be a real nuisance if you don't like middle seats.) |
| # Posted 2008-06-23 21:14:57 | |
| Cristina: | David's not actually the guy on the list, right? Otherwise they'd never let him fly... there's just someone with his name who's on the list. Which must be scary and weird for a kid. My mom would probably yell at them at the ticket counter.
As for SW, I managed to get a seat that I wanted on both flights, despite checking in less than an hour before take-off. It helps that I like to sit aft of the wings. The bigger pain is that I can't print a boarding pass at home, so I have to potentially stand in line at the counters. Not a problem in Tucson usually, but sometimes an issue in Phoenix. Always an issue in Providence. |
| # Posted 2008-06-23 21:37:50 | |
| bbrooke: | Wow -- that really sucks. I've heard horror stories (on the news) of what people have to go through to fly once they're on the list (or once someone with the same name is on the list).
Just last week, though, legislation was introduced to improve the process: link. |
| # Posted 2008-06-24 02:23:07 | |
| peggyd: | Nadim's name is also on the list. For the first dozen or so flights he took after 9/11, he was "randomly" chosen for extra security checks.
He still can't check in online, but I can for him if I made the reservations. :-) But Max has to go to the counter so we're still inconvenienced. |
| # Posted 2008-06-24 02:25:02 | |
| peggyd: | Oh, and this wasn't that much of an issue when we were flying SW, because people with kids got to be seated first. I guess enough regular folks complained, so now we have to wait until after the A group goes (unless, of course, we've somehow managed to get A seating tickets ... quite unlikely given the circumstances these days). |
| # Posted 2008-06-24 04:00:35 | |
| unpronunciation: | If you ignore the really sucky nature of this, at another level it's deliciously ironic, Captain Cristina. |
| # Posted 2008-06-24 04:25:25 | |
| walk: | My son is in your situation, with a name, Robert, on the real list. So he can't check in on-line either and must go to the counter and try to find someone. And he travels fairly often and gets rather annoyed. |
| # Posted 2008-06-24 17:36:44 | |
| triple-double: | This totally sucks. I also heard quite the stories about this process from Vlad. |
| # Posted 2008-06-24 19:25:28 | |
| speedy: | Perhaps the most controversial would be changing your name in that situation:) |
| # Posted 2008-06-24 20:10:14 | |
| bubo: | ...to Captain Bellini ? |
| # Posted 2008-06-24 22:47:37 | |
| bbrooke: | This service has been advertised heavily in Denver lately. Maybe it would help you avoid some hassle. You get to pay $100/year (and hand over a bunch of personal information) for the priviliege of breezing through airport security.
http://flyclear.com/ |
| # Posted 2008-06-24 23:10:47 | |
| Cristina: | Interesting. Some true entrepeneur jumped on that. The airports around here have such short lines (usually no lines) through security that it wouldn't be too marketable... and apparently it isn't, since it's not available in Tucson, Phoenix, or Albuquerque.
What's unclear about this flyclear business is whether it would help at all in the checking-in part. Not sure I'd pay $129 for something that I should already be able to do, though. |
| # Posted 2008-06-25 03:52:07 | |
| BorisGr: | How does one end up on the No-Flight list? |
| # Posted 2008-06-25 04:11:37 | |
| Cristina: | Well, there are something like 40,000 people on the list. So apparently the answer is: not much.
It's supposed to be suspected terrorists, but if there are really tens of thousands of suspected terrorists out there then we're in more trouble than we thought. |
| # Posted 2008-06-25 04:25:57 | |
| bbrooke: | Actually, some say the the number on the no-fly list is more like 700,000.
And, as of 2006, the list contained "the names of 15 of the 19 dead 9/11 hijackers and did not contain some of the names of known living terrorists." In other words, lots of inconvience for innocent people, without much real effectiveness against any criminal with the tiniest bit of sophistication to create a fake ID. Federal bureaucratic ineptitude at its finest. [Reference] |
| # Posted 2008-06-25 07:20:26 | |
| walk: | Are we feeling safer yet? |
| # Posted 2008-06-25 15:34:58 | |
| birdman: | "The GAO has also said the current air carrier prescreening process and its successor "Secure Flight" won't stop terrorists from boarding planes if they use different names and fake identification"
On the plus side, with the list growing so rapidly, the odds of any fake identity chosen by said terrorists NOT also being there must be pretty slim... |
| # Posted 2008-06-25 20:48:46 | |
| Cristina: | My sister's old boss is making a film called Please Remove Your Shoes about airline security. Should be interesting, though it's always depressing to see evidence of our government wasting effort and $$$$. Wait, I see that every day at work! |
| # Posted 2008-06-26 06:44:46 | |
| coach: | You know, it's too bad our government is not as good as they are depicted in movies. (Love those satellite cameras that can follow people on the ground, I mean, so why don't we know where Bin laden is now?).
Anyway, you'd think they would have thought of the false ID problem by now, and have pictures along with names come up on the screens. |
You must be logged in to add a message