NRoften

As a gate agent, the second time this boarding pass was scanned the gate agent should have requested ID from the passenger as the gate reader would have prevented the passenger from boarding. If the stowaway scanned it first, when the "real" passenger scanned, their ID would have matched the boarding pass, at which point the GA will typically either allow the passenger to board or ask the passenger to wait until it is confirmed their seat is unoccupied. Duplicate scans now-a-days are extremely common, especially if traveling with a group or companion. People often don't pay attention to who's boarding pass is on their phone.

Per the article, the stowaway spent just about the entire time after they boarded in the lavatory, so it is plausible the GA followed SOP. Also it is not required for the lavatories to be empty to close the main cabin door, however, the aircraft should not have pushed from the gate until after all passengers were seated. The fact it left the gate with a passenger in the lavatory is on the FA's.

vanillabean

DLASflyer

Sounds like he was friend or family of an airline employee using their flight benefits. With nonrev standby, sometimes you get on and sometimes you don't.

flyerCO

A companion pass and buddy pass are different things.

moondog

You worked for Southwest?

krazykanuck

I'm guessing it was a full flight with no empty seats, but had there been and he just sat down, I imagine he probably would have made it to Austin.

moondog

That's the way I read it too. And, his plan almost worked. No big deal in the grand scheme.

HDQDD

Smart companies use barcodes that change periodically (i.e. every minute) to prevent exactly this type of behavior (i.et. taking a pic and sending to someone else). Heck, even Costco does this...and their app is pretty weak.

Airlines could also get with the 2010's and do this via NFC which is even more secure. Arenas and stadiums have been doing this for years.

moondog

Haven't barcodes been pretty much obsolete for the past 5+ years?

Orange County Commuter

The gate agent ignore the warning note and let the passengers on and will soon be losing their job

vanillabean

Or, as Costco also does, have a picture of you in the app. So as your BP is shown on the screen, swipe left or right at boarding to let your picture be shown.

flyerCO

Highly doubt that. If they delayed based on every "duplicate "passenger alert on domestic flight there would be lots of upset passengers. They happen and not infrequently either.

HDQDD

In my opinion yes, but in the real-world, they'll still be around for a while. Reading barcodes is pretty simple and the equipment for such is ubiquitous these days. That's a double edged sword. It's also trivially easy to create malicious bar/QR codes. However, if you're the company that both creates and reads the barcodes, you can implement your own security. Por ejemplo: DL's* barcodes have a hashed fingerprint at the end to prevent peeps from making fakes. But if they don't rotate (and apparently they don't), then one could just copy them, like happened here.

*Looks like UA uses the same type of hash so maybe its a TSA requirement.

ND76

I wonder if the perp is a descendant of Mrs. Ada Quonsett.

HDQDD

I don't think that's what happened. It was likely more like this:

• Stowaway scans dupe barcode and it's accepted
• Minutes later, real pax comes up and it throws an error.
• Agent says: hold on, I need to see your ID...
• Real pax shows ID, it matches barcode...so agent scratches head and says: ok you can board.
• Agent makes mental note to verify final count onboard, since that will reveal if there is indeed someone who already boarded in that spot. Then they can sort it out.
• In this case, said stowaway pulled a fast one with the lav arbitrage and got away with it, so the counts would have matched, and since it was a full flight with no dupe seats...no one suspected the discrepancy.

If anyone is at fault, it's the inflight crew, but I think this is far from a fire-able offense. Other mitigation options include improving digital security (rolling barcodes, NFC, facial rec, etc.), or go back to checking everyone's ID at the gate...