Why is the DAA getting all the blame here? Surely FR should be getting some too.
the reason I am being so vocal about this is simple. FR have succeeded in "simplifying" the check in process so that they don't have to deal with a queue of people at check in just to give them a boarding card. OK, so far, no problem with that, the on line check in process requires that the person checking in has the details of the flight that has been booked.
However, and this is where I get more uncomfortable, I now have on my PC, and printable
as many times as I care to print it, a boarding card for a specific flight. I arrive at the airport, and proceed directly to the security check to go airside. All that was checked on Saturday morning was my FR boarding card, printed on my computer. If I had printed more than one, and given it to "AN other", if AN other had gone through security before me, then IF the FR system had said "The boarding card has already been scanned", I produce Valid ID and have a hissy fit that I'm being denied boarding.
If I get airside, which I should, then the person who went before me has got airside when they should not. My "reason" for requiring to go back in again could also be "I forgot something from my car so had to go back to the car park to get it", so the ONLY way to maintain security in this scenario is to check the ID AND the boarding card, and make sure they match AT THE POINT OF ENTRY TO AIRSIDE.
At that point, this is nothing to do with the specific flight, and everything to do with that a person with no business airside has got past the airside security check. Believe me, once that has been done, having worked on the ramp at DUB for several years, I can think of several ways that it would then be possible to get from airside to the ramp. I am not about to disclose them here!!!!
Once on the ramp, it would be possible to do quite a few things that would be "inappropriate".
FR check IDs on boarding, and do a head count, so this is NOT about someone getting on to a flight that they are not ticketed for, and EVERYTHING to do with the airside security system being breached.
I made representations at the time this was announced that there were massive holes in this concept, I was told, "it's sorted", and Saturday morning has proved to me that it is not, for exactly the reasons I gave at the time.