Gate check for Easyjet + other LCCs

[davidjohnson6]

Many will be aware that Easyjet staff or agents at gates often have hand held devices to validate boarding cards printed by a passenger prior to letting passengers board and keep a record as to who actually boarded a flight. I'm assuming that the only purpose of a boarding card check by cabin crew is to ensure passengers didn't somehow board the wrong aircraft.

What data is available on these devices to verify a passenger ? Passport number ? Date of birth ? Full APIS details ? Details of ticket purchase ? Maybe details of other purchases by the passenger ? Anything else ? How much data is presented to gate staff by default and how much is available on demand in the event that gate staff have doubts about the validity of a boarding card ?

What similiar data is available to gate staff for other LCCs where a passenger has printed their own boarding card and has not needed to visit a checkin desk ?

[Gibon2]

I don't know that this has anything to do with LCCs - most airlines now offer online check-in, with the option to print your own boarding pass (or simply have it sent to your smartphone). I doubt the information in the barcode on the print-your-own boarding pass contains anything much more than the data printed on the pass - name of passenger, flight no., date, time, seat, etc, and some kind of sequence number. I also doubt that the scanner at the gate does anything more than match the boarding pass against the passenger list for that flight, and I would expect the process is exactly the same regardless of whether the passenger has obtained the boarding pass at a human-staffed check-in counter, a check-in machine, or has printed it at home. The only actual validation done at the gate seems to be the matching of the name on the boarding pass with the name on the passport or ID, and this is done by a human eyeball.

But I'm happy to be corrected by someone who actually knows.

[frequentflyer2]

I've always assumed when they scan your boarding pass at security, the system registers you as having gone "airside". Then, when they scan it at the gate, the system registers you as having left the terminal and boarded the aircraft. This means they know at any one time who has checked in for a flight, and of those people, how many are airside and therefore ready to proceed direct to the gate. I assume this is what prompts the announcements about passengers travelling on such and such a flight who have not yet gone through security to do so. They can match up departure times with waiting times at security etc. When they're about to close the doors, and someone hasn't turned up, they know from the scanned boarding passes whether they're airside or not. It also means if you check-in online at home, they know whether you've actually made it to the airport.

[Hartington]

The data spec is in IATA Reso 792 and an extract from that is here http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=iata%202d%20barcode&source=web&cd=6&ved=0CGkQFjAF&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.airports.org%2Faci%2Faci%2Ffile%2FACI_P riorities%2FIT%2FDoc0803_BRD_BCBP_XMLFinal.pdf&ei=IEPGT_SeHYOu8APy-bTSBQ&usg=AFQjCNEJHN6jGiaum_-LabWf53FMjbVhxg&cad=rja