Is it OK to have peoples names on airline tickets, or should they be anonymous like commuter tickets on buses and trains?
Anonymous tickets clearly work in many contexts without causing any social problems or “security issues”. These include concerts, theatres, transit passes, sports games, movies, festivals, road tolls, national parks, intercity buses, and lotteries. There is nothing in particular about airlines that makes them different, except that they are heavily regulated by a Federal agency that chose to impose these ID requirements. Anonymous tickets used to work quite well for airlines, even in the days when plane flights were much more expensive than today. I flew on the east coast Shuttle flights that ran every hour and took as many passengers as showed up. I flew on People Express, which did not take reservations, and which actually collected the ticket money while in the air. Even in the early 1990’s, “open tickets” were common in air travel. Everyday tickets didn’t include the first name of the passenger until the late 1990’s. People frequently swapped tickets with friends, or sold them, sin
