Secure Flight Update and What it Means for You

An email I recently got from American Airlines...

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As you may know, since August 2009, American Airlines has collected and transmitted Secure Flight Passenger Data (SFPD) to the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) (http://www.tsa.gov/) as required by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Secure Flight is designed to enhance the security of domestic and international commercial air travel by streamlining the DHS watch list matching process.

The next phase in this program requires that effective November 1, all passengers have Secure Flight Passenger Data (SFPD) in their reservation at least 72 hours prior to departure. You will be unable to travel without providing this information.

How will this affect you?

In compliance with this mandate, you will be required to provide Secure Flight Passenger Data (full name, date of birth, gender and redress number*, if applicable):


To purchase any ticket on or after September 15, 2010, regardless of travel date
To travel November 1, 2010, or later, regardless of purchase date
Take steps now to be sure you are ready to travel.

You will need to provide Secure Flight Passenger Data:


If it was not provided when you made your reservation
For reservations made prior to adding SFPD to your AAdvantage® account profile
For all future reservations
Learn more about Secure Flight and find instructions for handling each of the above scenarios at www.aa.com/secureflight.

Update your AAdvantage® account profile now

To save you time and make your future travel easier, additional fields have been added to your AAdvantage account profile on AA.com so you can store this new information. Then, every time you make a reservation with us**, we will automatically add your Secure Flight Passenger Data.

For full details and to update your AAdvantage account, visit www.aa.com/secureflight.

Thank you for your business. We look forward to seeing you on board soon.

*A TSA-assigned identification number. This number is assigned to customers who believe they have been mistakenly matched to a name on the watch list to help prevent misidentification. For more information, visit www.dhs.gov/trip.


**Currently, the option to automatically populate your Secure Flight Passenger Data from your AAdvantage account is only available for reservations booked on AA.com or via AA Reservations. Reservations booked elsewhere will require that you manually enter your SFPD.