British Airways to require photo ID for domestic flights from 1st September

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

• Matarredonda says:

  26 Aug26 August 11:55

  Surely this just brings BA in line with Easyjet? Ryanair have always required passport ID.
  Probably a reaction to Government action to curb movement of, so called illegal migrants, who have not yet got full papers to remain in the UK.
  Personally it has always amazed me how free and easy BA has been.

  • lumma says:

    26 Aug26 August 13:02

    Ryanair wasn’t always passport required for Ireland and domestic flights but you did need photo ID like this

• Linda says:

  26 Aug26 August 13:34

  If you’re flying from MAN take a passport anyway. The cameras at security are rubbish so when they check you again at the pre- entrance to the gate, it often fails to match. This entails one guy and a long queue to resolve. We’d have missed out last LHR flight but fortunately (?) the crew were over an hour late because their taxi from the hotel hadn’t turned up! The guy used passports to validate ID

• Errol says:

  26 Aug26 August 15:08

  I find it most bizarre that anyone would travel domestically without ID. What happens if you need to travel overseas, hire a car, withdraw a large amount of cash from your bank, check into a hotel etc whilst on your domestic trip?

  • redlilly says:

    26 Aug26 August 15:58

    Some people travel domestically with work and don’t think to travel with their passports. In my last job I regularly flew London to Edinburgh return and never took my passport, like I would never take my passport on the LNER trains (the latter even today) between the two cities.

  • Derek Broughton says:

    26 Aug26 August 16:28

    I find it most bizarre that _anybody_ would plan on spur-of-the-moment overseas travel while travelling domestically, or need to hire a car (though the only reason I wouldn’t have a drivers licence with me is if I didn’t HAVE one). I can get 3500 our of ATMs (daily – admittedly only 400 at a time). And I’ve never needed photo ID to check into a UK hotel (and would refuse to use that hotel if it happened — I know there are a few that think they have that right).

    All that said, I completely don’t get the need for “valid” photo ID — expired passports, licenses, etc, should be sufficient as long as the photo is still recognizably you.

    • NorthernLass says:

      26 Aug26 August 20:03

      We were asked for ID at the HIEX at LHR T3 a couple of months ago. They may not have a legal basis to demand it but they are perfectly within their rights to make it a hotel policy and refuse to honour your booking if you can’t produce it – much like nightclubs can require you to be searched as a condition of entry.

      • Bernie says:

        26 Aug26 August 22:51

        Can they though? I refuse to give my ID at a hotel in the UK. Not a problem though, because 99% of the time it is not asked for (give or take a few LHR hotels that I just hand it to anyway because I can’t be arsed putting them to rights). We don’t do ID in the UK and quite rightly so too. In terms of flights with BA though, I’ve always carried my driving licence with me since I was stopped from flying from NCL to LHR on a random check by the NCL Gestapo. [The NCL border ‘force’, by the way, makes MAN look like angels. Everyone says the Geordies are friendly. They are not. If the NCL Border Force had guns (which I suspect they wish they had), I’d be dead by now several times over. Bunch of arrogant lazy xxxxx.

    • Mike says:

      27 Aug27 August 04:03

      Many hotels ask for photo ID, last time I was asked was in the last two weeks (in Liverpool, small independent hotel), the time before that was the weekend before that in London (large international chain). Personally, I don’t think they should ask (even worse are the ones that photocopy it) but the alternative is to walk, which I’ve no urge to do at 10pm at night or having traveled down to London (additionally, it would be interesting to see how well you get on demanding a refund).

  • John says:

    26 Aug26 August 19:23

    I’d go home to get my overseas bag first.

  • Flynn says:

    26 Aug26 August 23:14

    I find it most bizarre that anyone would travel domestically with ID. Clearly you are demonstrating that you are one of the potentially wealthiest 11%. 🙂

• Ian says:

  26 Aug26 August 16:19

  As always with these changes I find myself at a loss to know what elderly people are expected to do. My mother and aunt have had neither valid driving licence nor passport for several years: do they show their bus pass?!?

• Blair Waldorf Salad says:

  26 Aug26 August 17:17

  So glad that Ireland issues credit card sized passport cards alongside passport books. My passport card sits in my wallet at all times; whether needed for collecting packages, checking into hotels or if I had to travel at short notice while away from home. (To answer Derek above, if you have older parents abroad then the need to travel immediately can and does arise)

  I wouldn’t be keen carrying my passport book around at all times.

  • redlilly says:

    26 Aug26 August 19:41

    Ditto! It’s great isn’t it. Loved also that the Irish government were advertising the passport card in the toilets of the Aviva stadium last weekend, during the rugby, for those travelling to the Rugby World Cup!!

    Would just be great if BA staff members get better at understanding that you can use the card to travel. On at least 10 occassions, I have had to explain trying to both leave and travel to the UK that it is a valid document for exit to the EU and entry back in to the UK. Some of the staff members had no idea what the card is!!

    • Blair Waldorf Salad says:

      27 Aug27 August 01:34

      That’s the confusion caused by the UK now requiring EU citizens to show passport books rathee than national ID cards. Even though the FCDO website clearly states that Irish passport cards remain fine, I’ve always had it refused when shown to board a UK-bound flight (except when departing DUB)

  • masaccio says:

    26 Aug26 August 20:58

    But that’s state ID and babies get eaten, or puppies, or something. I never quite figured it out.

  • Brian P says:

    27 Aug27 August 17:42

    Why are you not using your Irish diving licence? Same thing.

• Nicholas Pike says:

  26 Aug26 August 20:44

  I must confess to being astonished that photo ID was not required to fly on any BA flight- or indeed any flight anywhere. I always carry my driver’s licence with me as I find it’s often requested., particularly now for offices in the City of London- a new trend. Separately, as I have just posted on the Business Traveller forum, Hilton in the UK are asking for photo ID on check in. Some may object, but it doesn’t bother me.

• masaccio says:

  26 Aug26 August 20:57

  Sorry if I missed this earlier in the thread, but isn’t it just because of the automated gate security at Heathrow? I thought it was hilarious when we boarded for Athens a couple of weeks back that we had to have ID manually checked at the gate. The same system at HKIA stores your photo at checkin/transfer and then uses facial recognition to speed up transition through later security.

  • John says:

    27 Aug27 August 20:40

    No, your photo is captured on entry to security and linked to your passport which you provide at that time, and then the photo is used to board without needing a BP.

    It doesn’t work if you use a different passport later, which I did for an experiment.

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.