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Veils and YouTube trigger Canadian security investigation over passenger identification
Score one for social media: some guy popped a video of two fully veiled women boarding a plane on YouTube, and now the Canadian authorities are investigating. The video is said to show passengers hopping onto an Air Canada flight to London from Montreal on July 11, 2010. The beef isn't so much the veils as ensuring "that airline personnel are verifying the identity of all of passengers before they board a flight," according to the AFP.
In the video, shot by a British traveler, the women were not required to show their faces before boarding, which Canadian Minister of Transportation John Baird called "deeply disturbing" in a statement released Sunday. He added that it "poses a serious threat to the security of the air travelling public."
Filed under: North America, Canada, Airlines, Airports
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Vcitoria Aug 3rd 2010 4:42PM
If they were already checked at a security checkpoint, does it matter if they get on the right plane? That's more of an airline logistics issue than a security threat. Identity is irrelevant once someone has made it into the secure area, they're assumed to be weapon free and boarding a plane to their int'l destination. If they get on a wrong plane, like say a flight that would've cost way more than their original itinerary, the airline is out some money, but no one on the plane is in danger. On US domestic flights we never checked ID, just took their boarding pass and specifically announced that they wouldn't need their IDs at the gate. They were all security cleared, it's their problem if they go to Tulsa, OK instead of Spokane, WA...and believe me, it happened quite often with the correct boarding pass in had and all ;)
Former Gate Agent and Veiled Muslim.