Pax name - How exact does it have to be?
Thread Starter
Joined: Jul 2002
Posts: 77
Likes: 0
From: The bar of the Frog and Peach
Pax name - How exact does it have to be?
Ms Luggage was trying to book online with KLM/NWA this evening and entered her details exactly as shown in her shiny new m/c readable passport as required.
The computer said no. Alphabetic characters only. Obviously it took exception to the " ' " since her surname is actually O'Luggage, and yet the passport service has no problem with an apostrophe.
The question is: Does it matter? Is the airline or the TSA going to quibble about this?
The computer said no. Alphabetic characters only. Obviously it took exception to the " ' " since her surname is actually O'Luggage, and yet the passport service has no problem with an apostrophe.
The question is: Does it matter? Is the airline or the TSA going to quibble about this?
Joined: Apr 2002
Posts: 1,235
Likes: 13
From: UK
7 bit ascii
Sounds like you've run up against one of the limitations of the computers that the legacy airlines use. That is they use 7 bit ascii which limits the character set they can accept. Enter the name as OLuggage instead of O'Luggage. However, that's about the only latitude you have. Sam was lucky (in my view) being able to travel as Sam instead of Samuel - the TSA and their equivalents round the world can be very picky about things like that and don't get clever about matching document numbers to your advantage.
Joined: Apr 2008
Posts: 428
Likes: 0
From: OXF
Hartington is correct, although at times it is not the legacy system that's the problem but overzealous validation at the web end. Sometimes it is assumed that apostrophes (single quotes) or dashes would never be in a surname, which they unfortunately are (double-barrelled apostrophed surname anyone?)...
There are other idiotic examples of this:
VS for example still requires someone who used to have ILtR in their foreign passport to enter an expiry date for ILtR (ILtR is indefinite, i.e. has no expiry date). When said person changes to British citizenship, an expiry for citizenship is still required. A citizen is a CITIZEN... which means there IS NO EXPIRY DATE! This has been raised with VS in the past, but the question remains whether they'll do anything about it.
S.
There are other idiotic examples of this:
VS for example still requires someone who used to have ILtR in their foreign passport to enter an expiry date for ILtR (ILtR is indefinite, i.e. has no expiry date). When said person changes to British citizenship, an expiry for citizenship is still required. A citizen is a CITIZEN... which means there IS NO EXPIRY DATE! This has been raised with VS in the past, but the question remains whether they'll do anything about it.
S.
Joined: Dec 2006
Posts: 22
Likes: 0
From: Mostly sea level
Had a similar issue booking tickets for myself and a couple of friends. Friends have a three-part surname - they only go by the last two, but the full monty was given in passports and wouldn't fit into the airline booking system. Rang said airline to query, and was told to use the last two only.
We checked in OK but were called back to the desk five minutes later. There followed a bit of scowling from security bods, examination of passport photos against faces by half a dozen different people, and all was OK.
If we managed to get by on the omission of a third of a surname, I'm sure an odd apostrophe won't be an issue.
We checked in OK but were called back to the desk five minutes later. There followed a bit of scowling from security bods, examination of passport photos against faces by half a dozen different people, and all was OK.
If we managed to get by on the omission of a third of a surname, I'm sure an odd apostrophe won't be an issue.
Joined: Jan 2008
Posts: 239
Likes: 0
From: France
I know someone who's full name is too long for a ticket but fits on the passport. He called the airline who said it was ok to abbreviate it. And it was.
Another time an agent booked a flight for me and the last name was wrong. I called to ask if it could be changed quickly and the answer was just go anyway, nobody will notice. He was right. I went through at least four controls and nobody noticed the difference.
Quite recently there was also a discussion between some passengers just after boarding. The FA discovered that two pairs of passengers had the same seat numbers but two of them were supposed to be flying to another destination. The ticket check at the gate was obviously not so effective.
Another time an agent booked a flight for me and the last name was wrong. I called to ask if it could be changed quickly and the answer was just go anyway, nobody will notice. He was right. I went through at least four controls and nobody noticed the difference.
Quite recently there was also a discussion between some passengers just after boarding. The FA discovered that two pairs of passengers had the same seat numbers but two of them were supposed to be flying to another destination. The ticket check at the gate was obviously not so effective.
Riding the Euro Gravy Plane
Joined: Feb 2006
Posts: 455
Likes: 0
From: Strasbourg
This has happened to me on a number of occasions, especially when I've bought tickets in eastern Europe. Quite often they translate your name into cyrillic and then back to latin when the ticket is printed, the result being that your name is spelled very differently to what appears on your passport, for example the name Steven becomes Stiv. Never had a problem though.
Also, every ticket I've ever bought has displayed the abbreviated format of my first name whilst my passport displays the full version. Again, never had a problem.
Also, every ticket I've ever bought has displayed the abbreviated format of my first name whilst my passport displays the full version. Again, never had a problem.
Thread Starter
Joined: Jul 2002
Posts: 77
Likes: 0
From: The bar of the Frog and Peach
Thanks everyone. When Ms Luggage spoke to KLM they said much the same thing; drop the apostrophe. Did that and booking made successfully.
(Incidentally, she had to have her work email changed to omit the apostrophe as so many external email correspondants could not use it in the address.)
(Incidentally, she had to have her work email changed to omit the apostrophe as so many external email correspondants could not use it in the address.)
