Because of the Secure Flight program, passengers that travel from, within or over the United States will have to abide by a new set of rules from 31 October 2009. The Secure Flight is a program that was developed by the Department of Homeland Security. Such program is considered to be a new safety measure for passengers.

With the help of the program it is possible to see the whole information about passenger against USA Federal Government watch lists. Due to the additional information, the Secure Flight program will be able to prevent misidentification of passengers that have similar names to individuals on the watch list

According to new rules, all international airline companies will have to make a request and get Secure Flight Passenger Data and then send it to the USA’s Transportation Security Administration, i.e. division of the DHS.

It means that many airlines, among them Qantas, Jetstar will have to contact travel agents in order to get and send some kind of information to the TSA via the agent’s GDS. Such information includes full name as it is written in the travel document of the passenger, date of birth, gender and redress number (if applicable). According to the rules the agent will have to get the full information about passengers and then file it into the PNR during the booking time. Then TSA will match it against no fly and watch lists.

One should say that providing such information is very beneficial for passengers as it may prevent delays or inconveniences at the airport especially for those, who have similar names and those, who are on the watch lists.

It is possible to find extra information related to GDS commands on the Qantas Industry Sales Site at qantas.com/agents under the category of training.