How The New Secure Flight Rules Affect Your Dive Travel Business

(Dive Travel Business News - October 28, 2008) -- The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has issued its Final Rule on Secure Flight. This rule shifts pre-departure watch list matching responsibilities from individual airlines to the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), which is one of the key recommendation of the 9/11 Commission.  By bringing watch list matching responsibilities in-house, TSA hopes to reduce misidentifications when a traveler's name is similar to one found on a watch list.

Travel Professionals providing air travel arrangements for their clients will have to collect Secure Flight Information from each prospective air traveler. If this information is not provided, a boarding pass cannot be printed.
There are four mandatory facts to collect:

(1) full name as it appears on the government issued ID they plan to use at the airport security checkpoint
(2) date of birth
(3) gender
(4) Redress Number (if the person has one)*

*  A Redress Number is obtained from DHS when a passenger has had identification issues related to the terrorist watch lists but is not in fact a terrorist. A traveler obtains a Redress Number from DHS following problems getting through security. Applying for such a number is the passenger's responsibility, not the travel agent. It is alright if a passenger, when asked, says "I don't have one." Additional information regarding the DHS' Redress program can be found at DHS online.

Agents are not required to verify or otherwise validate the accuracy of Secure Flight information provided by a client. A passenger's Secure Flight information must be provided no later than 72 hours prior to the scheduled departure time, unless the reservation is made within 72 hours of the scheduled departure time, in which case it must be collected at the time of booking.

The new rule will begin with a soft launch in early 2009, at which point some airlines can begin forwarding domestic data to TSA. Airlines will be brought into Secure Flight individually over time and should issue directions to booking agents. During this time booking agents will only be collecting Secure Flight information for domestic flights. The Global Distribution Systems (GDS) have not yet announced procedures for travel agents to use when collecting the additional data elements. The GDSs will be responsible for informing Travel Agents about where to put the information in the Passenger Name Record.

A full implementation of Secure Flight will begin around September 2009, when the program would assume, from U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the international air carriers, the watch list matching function for passengers on international flights.

To be on the safe side, plan now how you are going to update any client profiles you keep. Profiles that pre-populate booking screens can eliminate the need to ask repeat clients the same Secure Flight questions every time they book: If you do not have the capability to store Secure Flight information electronically without having to be re-entered for future bookings, you will have to ask for the Secure Flight information each time repetitiive bookings are made by the same passenger.

Giving the Secure Flight information is not optional. If a client refuses to provide Secure Flight Information, a booking agent can make the booking anyway, but you should tell the passenger that she will not be able to get a boarding pass either at home or at the airport until the information has been provided. It is also wise to make a note in the client record of the client's refusal to provide this information to you.

If a non-airline travel provider has an online booking capability for taking reservations from an airline, then Secure Flight has a privacy notice requirement: If your website has a booking engine, Secure Flight requires specific language (see below) to be displayed on your website but this requirement can also be satisfied by posting a link to the TSA website.The Privacy Policy reads as follows:

"The Transportation Security Administration of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security requires us to collect information from you for purposes of watch list screening, under the authority of 49 U.S.C. section 114, and the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004. Providing this information is voluntary; however, if it is not provided, you may be subject to additional screening or denied transport or authorization to enter a sterile area. TSA may share information you provide with law enforcement or intelligence agencies or others under its published system of records notice. For more on TSA Privacy policies, or to view the system of records notice and the privacy impact assessment, please see TSA's Web site at www.tsa.gov."

Travel agents and booking agents are not required to provide the Secure Flight Privacy Notice in telephone, personal or other non-Internet based contacts with prospective air travelers. If your Web site is just information about the agency and its services, but does not have a booking engine facility, you are not required by the rules to display the privacy notice. However, Agents are free to inform consumers that the request for this personal information is a requirement of the federal government for security purposes.

Secure Flight will not alter the way group space is booked (without listing all travelers' names). Reservations may be accepted without all of the Secure Flight information, but airlines may not request a boarding pass approval from TSA until the Secure Flight information of each passenger is provided. 

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