Southwest Airlines asks passenger to furnish ‘Secure Flight’ data

Southwest Airlines, the low-fare carrier based in Dallas, Texas, the United States has started asking its frequent-fliers to update their profiles with information such as name, gender and date of birth in accordance with the ‘Secure Flight’ programme of the United States Transportation Security Administration (TSA).

The Secure Flight programme is the successor to the present system of having airlines compare passenger names against the tens of thousands of names on the federal government’s ‘No-Fly’ list and ‘Selectee’ list.

American Airlines, based in Fort Worth, Texas, the United States, and a subsidiary of AMR Corporation, had begun collecting the required information under the Secure Flight programme from its customers in September 2009.

The Transportation Security Administration is an agency of the United States government that is responsible for security in all modes of transportation within the country.

According to the website of the US Transportation Security Administration,  the ‘Secure Flight’ is a programme developed by the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in response to a crucial recommendation made by the  9/11 Commission – that the Transportation Security Administration conduct a uniform watch-list matching.

The aim of the Secure Flight programme, says the TSA, is to augment the security of domestic and international commercial air travel through the use of improved watch-list matching.

The ‘Secure Flight’ conducts uniform pre-screening of passenger information against the federal government’s watch-lists for domestic as well as international flights. Prior to the Secure Flight, it was the responsibility of airline operators to check passengers against the government’s watch-lists.

The Secure Flight passenger watch-list matching will, in due course, apply to all domestic and international passengers travelling by flights into, out of, within, or over the United States. The programme also will apply to point-to-point international flights operated by United States-based airline operators.

The Transportation Security Administration says that the passengers stand to benefit from providing the required information since doing can avoid delays or inconveniences at the airport – particularly for those persons who have similar names to those on the watch-lists.

Southwest Airlines, in an e-mail to the members of its frequent-fliers programme, has asked them to provide the following information: The full name (exactly as it appears on the current, non-expired, government-issued photo ID that the person will be travelling with; date of birth; gender; and the Redress Number issued by the TSA (if applicable).