Without actually agreeing with the FAA, the reason you can't have a name other than your own on your ticket, as well as why you are required to be in your assigned seat on take-off and landing is because if there is a plane crash, they need to be able to identify an otherwise difficult to identify body. This does have some relevance to airport security if a plane is blown up.

I do not believe that this is true. Southwest Airlines has "open seating" on all of their flights, where you board and then sit in any seat that you choose. (IMHO, an annoying policy) When a flight is (close to) full, and the flight is running late, many flight attendants will instruct the last few passengers to "sit in any open seat". I have seen this on Reno Air, American, and United. -- Marshall Marshall Clow Aladdin Systems mclow@coyote.csusm.edu Warning: Objects in calendar are closer than they appear.