Jaunted

At LAX there are two security checks. The first one is in front of the metal detectors and they're supposed to check your pass against your ID. No problem there. At the terminal Mary handed her boarding pass to the woman checking in passengers. An alarm went off when it was run under the barcode reader - which should have been a signal that something was amiss - but she was allowed to board anyway.

Only on the actual plane - when Mary found a woman is sitting in her assigned seat - did anyone realize that she was using someone else's boarding pass. Specifically, she was using that woman's pass. It turns out that checking in the same person twice - which is happened what happened at the counters - doesn't raise alarms. Because why should it?

So that brings up at least two questions:

(1) Do you ever actually check the itinerary printed on your boarding passes and e-tickets? We suspect that most of you - like most of us - crumple them up well before the gate. It's these kinds of little things - these kinds of everyday things - that become habits and then practices and then institutions. Is there a better way to move around inside airports?

(2) If TSA is going to suck as much as they do - and the news this morning is that they let bomb-making materials get checked on board from Vegas to Boston - can't we at least make them less insufferable? If we're going to have them groping teenage girls, is it too much to ask them to check the girls' boarding slips first?

How often do you check your boarding passes before getting on the plane? Obsessively, only once or Mary-style, which is never? Let us know in comments below.

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· Boarding Passes coverage [Jaunted]