Originally Posted by missydarlin
I don't know if I'd chalk it up to agents ignoring error prompts. Some passengers manage to render their bar codes unreadable between issue and boarding. I'm guilty of this myself. I set my drink on it, or fold it, or otherwise funk it all up. So I get to the boarding agent, they try to scan it, it doesnt work, so they just "on" me manually by seat number. Hence no prompt until the "real" passengers boarding pass scans and the prompt goes up that they are already on. Agent checks to make sure that indeed this is the correct passenger, and lets them go...but I'm already in the seat.
You could theoretically make it harder to "on" manually. Perhaps by seat number AND last name...but I wouldn't guess it happens often enough to slow down the entire process to protect the occasional passenger who manages to board the wrong flight
Missy - You make a good point. I know that when they do that ('on' manually), the agent is supposed to compare the name that comes up on the screen with the name on the boarding pass. Actually, they're supposed to do that regardless... If they did that, they'd catch it right there. But the agent is often in a hurry and is usually hoping the passenger just knows what flight they're getting on.
As long as we're in a hurry to board flights like this, I suppose a certain error rate is inevitable. I'm more than happy to entertain other suggestions for how to lower that error rate!
Keep any ideas coming...