Seems strange how most of the airlines demanded photo ID for years but then they dropped the requirement.
Perhaps because it was realised that there wasn't really a problem to solve. Now our police see a chance to use a convenient situation to further their own agenda. This in all truth will have nothing to do with combating "terrorism". If a fugitive can get in a car, train or bus and travel anywhere in this country they want to anonymously, what difference does it make if they fly the same way. It isn't about any threat to domestic aviation we are talking about, it is just attempts to limit methods of travel for a very, very, very small minority of people, and further the empire building by unaccountable bureaucracies. Tacking it on the back of the Etihad incident where it was an International flight where you are required to show photo ID and real names were used anyway is just opportunistic b/s at it's best.
Between 2013 and 2016, 60 people were charged with flying under false names.
That they caught out of a conservative
240 million domestic travellers in those 4 years. And given that they missed all the rest of the people that did fly under a false name (for whatever reason they might have), what was the negative impact on domestic aviation? Zero!
Flying in this country has become so cheap that it is a pretty basic commodity now. Airlines just want a bum on a seat. As far as they are concerned, if they could get away with people using a tap'n'go card they would. What makes air travel any different to other forms of travel?