Originally Posted by
Mr. Bean
Interesting. I just booked a few tix with IndiGo and they say to have photo ID for all pax, as well as the CC used to pay the tix. Maybe the photo ID requirement is just not uniformly enforced? Is this something that varies airline to airline or is there a centralized screening process like in the US?
The airlines have not been asking me (an adult) for photo ID at all in recent months -- that is the same as usual for me going back decades -- nor is it required of children. There is centralized, routine checking at the likes of DEL for domestic flights but that is just done upon attempting entry into the terminal building and is done by the CISF guard -- it is not even being done routinely by the airline, so it is still very easy for people to fly under other people's names domestically in India as anyone can create a printout under any name matching their photo ID and then checking in and/or boarding using another printout with the ticketed passenger name(s).
Next time I run into the Home Minister, I will make sure to inform him of what I think about this stupid ID checking policy and the false impression that ID checking at airports is a valuable security check. ID is not security. The revised approach to ID checking at Indian airports that aligns domestic flight terminal entry procedures with international flight terminal entry was done because of a false belief in the value of ID checking as a security measure.