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Usually you have to scan your boarding pass at least twice at the airport: First at the security checkpoint and then at the gate for boarding (plus once more if you check bags). If somebody does not check in bags, does the airline know that a passenger arrived at the airport and at least made it to (not necessarily through) security? If so, would that be a trigger to call somebody out before the flight closes (and also to not call out if that passenger hasn’t even scanned his boarding pass yet at security)?

(Moved here from aviation SE)

silent
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  • Are you talking about facial recognition at the entrances of airports? – Mikael Dúi Bolinder Oct 11 '19 at 17:29
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    Neither. you usually have to scan you boarding pass at the security check. My question whether your airline receives this info as he “passenger X was at security at 12:04 pm” – silent Oct 11 '19 at 17:31
  • At or before security, (as some airports have security near the gates.) – Willeke Oct 11 '19 at 17:32
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    The answer could depend on the airport and/or the airline - AFAIK ‘final calls’ are not always made – Traveller Oct 11 '19 at 17:32
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    I don't have a source link, thus as a comment: I've seen a video about data security in the airline industry, and they specifically mentioned, that the boarding pass scanners at security would only check the encoded flight data on the boarding pass QR code for validity (i.e. flight number), but not against the booking systems of airlines. – dunni Oct 11 '19 at 17:49
  • Interesting @dunni thanks! would be great if anybody finds a source for this. – silent Oct 11 '19 at 17:54
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    @dunni I would not be surprised if even that situation varies from one country to another or one airport to another. – phoog Oct 11 '19 at 18:03
  • I think the answer can be found in the documentation for Amadeus. – Mikael Dúi Bolinder Oct 11 '19 at 18:15
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    @MikaelDúiBolinder what do you mean? – silent Oct 11 '19 at 18:53
  • @silent Amadeus is the software all airlines use, it's there your ticket is stored as well as all fares, routes etc. If the airline would track where you scan your passport it'd be in amadeus that info would be stored. Amadeus has public documentation for how the system works and somewhere in the docs you'd find this info. – Mikael Dúi Bolinder Oct 11 '19 at 19:03
  • @MikaelDúiBolinder not all airlines use Amadeus. It’s only one of the many GDS available (other include Sabre and Galileo), and some LCCs don’t use any of them, they have their own independent system. – jcaron Oct 12 '19 at 13:44
  • This is probably very airport and airline-specific. Many airports do not scan boarding passes at security. Others only use them for statistics, including feeding the waiting time calculations. Others still may just check the validity of the boarding pass but be completely disconnected from any system. Even if they do scan and store the information, they would then have to interface with the airline systems, and those may be very different (or, conversely, the systems of the airports airlines would have to connect to could be different). This makes it quite unlikely, except maybe at major hubs. – jcaron Oct 12 '19 at 13:49
  • Thanks @jcaron So you re saying the airlines are really not connected to the security check - or at least you suspect they are not?! – silent Oct 12 '19 at 13:51
  • @silent indeed I think it would be the exception rather than the rule. It may be the case in a few airline-airport combinations, but not in general IMHO (but I may be quite wrong). – jcaron Oct 12 '19 at 13:58
  • Yeah so far we have collected quite a few - often very educated - guesses. I realize it might indeed be different from airport to airport. But if maybe someone who is working at an actual airport gate could shed some light on their operation that would be great :) – silent Oct 12 '19 at 14:03

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Airlines can know you are in the airport if you checked your bags in. It is illegal for the plane to leave with your bags if you're not on the flight. At security, I assume they don't really care about your booking, only that you are on a flight and have the authorisation to be in that area of the airport.

On all international flights, and on domestic ones in most of the world, airlines adhere to a policy called Positive Passenger Bag Match (PPBM), which states that bags flying must be matched to a passenger on-board the flight.

Budget airlines won't always do final calls, sometimes they just shut the gate 20 or so minutes before the flight.

This can vary from one airport to another, some airports don't even do final calls anymore as seen here:

So they don't always know you are at the airport if you haven't checked in your bag.

Xnero
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  • "At security, I assume they don't really care about your booking": it's nonetheless conceivable that security's boarding pass scanning equipment, if there is any, might communicate the boarding pass scan to the airline. – phoog Oct 11 '19 at 18:09
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    'It is illegal for the plane to leave with your bags if you're not on the flight.' Is it? Do you have a reference for that? What happens if your bags get lost or left behind and have to be transported to you? –  Oct 11 '19 at 18:17
  • @TheRoadLessTravelled see here: https://travel.stackexchange.com/questions/87521/ppbm-what-happens-if-you-check-in-luggage-and-then-miss-the-flight – Xnero Oct 11 '19 at 18:20
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    Thanks. Your points about bags are valid but it wasn’t exactly what I was asking ;) and „I assume they don’t really care...“ isn’t quite a sourced answer – silent Oct 11 '19 at 18:20
  • @Daniil in your referenced answer I see this: 'PPBM does NOT require that baggage must fly on the same aircraft as the passenger'. This looks more like best practice rather than a legal requirement. –  Oct 11 '19 at 18:27
  • @phoog , they could, but they don't. For a source, see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_theater . It is well known that terrorist on the no-fly list can simply book under another name, modify the PDF boarding pass to show their real name, go through security with their real ID and the fake boarding pass, and then fly with the real boarding pass. All 'security' does is match the name on your ID with your boarding pass, and maybe verify the ID is real. – Aganju Oct 12 '19 at 00:40
  • @Aganju in the US, sure, but can you be sure that no country does this? I saw a documentary a couple of years ago about an airport somewhere in Asia, maybe the UAE, that tracks individuals through the secure part of the airport from the screening checkpoint to the gate using infrared sensors and computer analysis of the data they produce. I am pretty sure that the initial identification of each heat signature comes from the boarding pass scanner. – phoog Oct 12 '19 at 03:54