New TSA Secure Flight Data requirements greet MegaFlyers

TSA Secure Flight Data (SFD) rules begin on November 1, so members of FlyerTalk flying along on the Star MegaDo are hustling to become familiar with this new travel requirement. Essentially your ID has to match your ticket name and the airline needs to provide the TSA with you passenger name, your gender and your date-of-birth 72 hours in advance of flight or as soon as you make a reservation (good to know for future travel). The TSA is trying to cut down on the problems that have plagued the No Fly list. What happens is that unless the TSA sends the airline a message that you are “cleared”, you can’t fly and the airline is forbidden to give you a boarding pass or let you on the plane.

These new wrinkle in travel may cause a little anxiety but there are no surprises expected.

I’ve been thinking about what I need to do with this new regulation. My tickets always say Randy Petersen. My passport says Randy Petersen, so all good there. The problem is for some reason my Drivers License says Randall Petersen. So far in all my travels the TSA hasn’t said anything as it is clear its pretty much the same name. I’m not sure what kind of situation is may be to change my Drivers License, guess I’ll find out soon. But, since I’m headed to Germany on the first wave of the MegaDo, I’m good with the passport name ID.

Note: Anyone flying on the MegaDo who is not sure whether they have their Secure Flight Data on file might want to send along the following to this email address: airbusdo@gmail.com just to make sure you’re sitting next to me.

FlyerTalk handle:
Gender: M or F
Date of Birth in DDMMMYY format (for example 31DEC1980):