Two news of the last week apparently punch each other. The first: according to a study conducted by Nord-Vpn and Saily companies there is a thriving black market of stolen data related to travelprecisely in coincidence with the high season of the holidays. From the scans of the passport to the accounts of the loyalty programspersonal data can be sold on the Dark-Web even for thousands of dollars. The second: No more document to exhibit to the Gate for boarding. Of course, the approach of holidays makes the idea of moving more quickly to airports attractively, with fewer bureaucracy and expected standing.
And on the occasion of a flight late in the evening from Milan Linate (only 4 days after ENAC’s announcement), we used the wait to ask 50 passengers what would change. The answers were the following: almost half of the interviewees (21) thought that the document could not have it with it. Only 16 people knew that the performance at the Gate would no longer occur only for national flights; 9 did not think that the rule also applied for minors. Almost nobody (45) knew that there is still a list of passengers embarked with reservations And that the companies know perfectly who, of these names, presented themselves to the safety checks and who still not.
The new regulation and operational exceptions
Before the street, the provision of the national civil aviation body had to wait for the consent of the Ministry of the Interior to the removal of a phrase of the legislation that specified as the carrier “is responsible for verifying the gate, at the time of boarding, of the concordance between the name of the passenger reported on the boarding card with that resulting from an identity document, subject to visual feedback of the identity of the passenger”.
This is the legal basisbut for international and non -Schengen flights, the obligation to exhibit an identity document together with the boarding card also remains to the Gate and will in any case be prepared sample checks to verify the application of the new rule. The non -repetition of the control – which is however done even before the safety screening – is a faculty and not an obligation, so there may be vectors who want to continue to perform double control.
Finally, in our mini investigation we found 3 people who thought they could embark without having a document with them And one (convinced and insistent), who thought it would be possible to give or sell their ticket to another person as long as the same sex.
Sleer boarding and technological control
By applying the new rule, carriers can save time and staff. A single person can be enough to the gate In function of surveillance and assistance, while the passengers will directly pass the boarding card on the optical reader. If the red light turns on, then the agent will have to intervene to understand and possibly solve the problem.
We can therefore remove the idea that we will soon take the airplane like the train, it will still take time, But it is certainly an important step towards that goal And towards the delegation of security checks to the systems – visible and non -visible – that are at airports.
At the entrance of the boat, so to speak before checks to the baggage and screening, it is the passenger who submits the document and the ticket code to the ticket to the scannerand the access door to the checks opens only if the indicated flight is scheduled for that day, with that specific booking with the relative name.
Streamlining boarding times is one of the purposes of the new rule: the airport by definition should be a space “that sells time” and which allows you to use the fastest means of transport; It is therefore a contradiction that the fact that more time must be passed through the boarding of it will be in flight (Italy is a small country, the longest route is a flight lasting less than two hours).
As for luggage, the association between suitcase and passenger – for decades in force after the Lockerbie attack – it remains as it is. Have a good trip!
