All airlines flying to, from or via the United States will have to collect Secure Flight passenger information from each passenger from October 31, under the U.S. Transportation Security Administration‘s Secure Flight requirement.
When making a flight booking, each passenger must declare their full name just as it appears in their passport, as well as their gender and date of birth.
The airline sends the information to the TSA 72 hours before the flight departure time. The TSA compares the information with watch lists with the purpose of identifying suspected terrorists, preventing access to flights by passengers prohibited from flying, and identifying individuals for whom an enhanced security check should be performed.
When a passenger’s information has been compared with the watch lists, the Secure Flight system sends the result to the airline. If the screening result is negative, the passenger cannot be accepted for the flight without further investigation. Further investigation may, however, change the result to positive, in which case the passenger can be accepted for the flight.
An airline cannot accept for a flight individuals who lack a Secure Flight screening result. For this reason it is important that the required information is obtained from the reservation at least 72 hours before the flight’s departure time. If a booking is made closer to the travel time, the airline will deliver the information to the TSA in connection with the booking confirmation.
Further information on the Secure Flight requirement can be found on the TSA’s website at www.tsa.gov/what_we_do/layers/secureflight.
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