Thom Hartmann: Ralph Nader's Solutions for Saving the Future

[SheilaT]

17. Back then we weren't asking for ID from every single person who flew.

But, trust me, if we had had reason to think you were not the person named on the ticket, we'd have asked for ID.

I was an airline ticket agent from 1969 to 1979 at National Airport in Washington, DC, so I know exactly what I'm talking about.

Most tickets only had a first initial and last name on them, not even a Mr. or Ms. In rare cases there might be a full name, such as John Smith. Only if there was some extremely obvious mis-match between the name on the ticket and the person in front of us did we care. But even then, the rule was you were supposed to have a ticket in your own name. It was much easier to change reservations, change the name on the reservation or the ticket back then also.

The main reason we cared that the name on the ticket was your actual name, and the reason we asked for a phone contact, was in case the plane went down we could correctly ID the bodies and notify next of kin. Since plane crashes have always been very rare events, it wasn't often that this really mattered.

Oh. If you were trying to fly to another country back then you'd have a hard time flying with someone else's ticket because they might want to look at your passport to make sure you could actually travel to an international destination legally.