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American Airlines Information Gathering
matt-fu writes "Cory Doctorow posted a story on boingboing.net this morning describing a recent hassle while flying American Airlines. It seems that since he was traveling from the UK to the US with a Canadian passport, he was actually asked to give out the names and addresses of everyone he would be staying with in the US! He has written an open letter to AA in response. Has anyone else had something like this happen to them?"
Trying being a diabetic with an insulin pump. The security people aren't big fans of people with tubes coming out of them strapped to little computers.
This is probably an automated check on anyone with a 3rd country passport.
Either I've been smoking too much crack or my memory is shot, because I'm pretty sure I've been required to do that every single time I've flown to America (to visit family, first time was in 1999). I have a Danish passport and usually fly via Iceland, with Icelandair, but have also flown via the UK.
There's the usual "I will not commit terrorist acts" but also a section where you list who you will be staying with.
In 2002, I didn't have my cousin's then NY address handy, so I made one up. Good thing they didn't check up on it.
Funny story: On one trip, I had a present with me for a wedding, and had to take a national connecting flight from Boston to Baltimore. They had these things where they check for various trace chemicals that would indicate explosives. It of course went off five times on my suitcase, so the guy had it opened and went through it, item by item.
Finally he got to the present, a bottle of Gammel Dansk (a bitter alcohol), which was wrapped. He asked me what was in it, I told him. He then asked me if I had spent time near or on a farm previous to my flight, all the questions that would explain why I had trace chemicals on my luggage, but there was no apparent reason. He eventually let me go, when I started commentingthat I had to catch the connecting flight.
During the carry-on check, I realized I had a box-cutter in my pencil-case. There were also a couple of blades that were just floating around in there along with the pencils & pens. As the guy was rummaging through literally everything, including the pencil-case, I gotta admit I got a bit nervous that he would cut himself. He didn't find it, though. So much for thoroughness, heh.
My aunt was less lucky. She had her knitting pins confiscated and they almost ruined the cake she was bringing for the wedding.
I'm a little late for this but it's an area I'm familiar with so I thought I'd contribute it.
The U.S. Customs Department is in the process of moving towards what they call "U.N. APIS" (Advanced Passenger Information System). Details can be found at here in the Word document US Passenger List; UN EDIFACT Message Set.
The U.S. APIS system which has been used for some time does not require destination address information. The U.N. format does. See the linked document pages 60-63 for more details. Eventually this will be required when flying any major airline coming into the U.S., not just American Airlines.