What are the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) requirements?
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is a US government agency that captures traveler information from the airlines. Every booking requires the passenger’s full name, date of birth and gender. In addition, a Traveler’s legal name on their travel documents used for identification must match the name fields entered in their Concur Travel profile to meet TSA requirements.
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When do TSA requirements apply?
TSA requirements apply to airlines operating flights originating, connecting or ending in the United States and to flights over the United States (such as from Canada to Mexico).
How is the TSA information used?
Concur Travel will write the TSA information to each booking based on the formats provided for each GDS. All information is passed from the airline to the TSA. The TSA takes responsibility for matching passenger names to federal watch lists before flight departures.
These travel configuration settings allow the customization of TSA Secure Flight Options for client travel profiles, including when to prompt for required information and how to handle guest bookings. These settings are useful for ensuring compliance with TSA regulations and optimizing the travel booking process.
To access the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) Secure Flight Options settings, on the travel configuration page, use CTRL+ F to search for the setting as depicted in the following graphic.
Review the following table to learn more about each of the available settings in the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) Secure Flight Options section.
| Field | Description / Action |
|---|---|
| For information required by the TSA for travel to, from, connecting in and flying over the USA | Select one of the options from the drop-down menu as appropriate. The following options are available:
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| When to send TSA-required data to air carriers | Select one of the following options from the drop-down menu:
Note To ensure travelers are prompted for TSA data during reservations, set the When to send TSA required data to air carriers field to either Only for travel to, from, or transferring through the USA or Always. |
| Allow guest bookings when the Date of Birth is unknown | Select this option to enable guest bookings without a date of birth. Note There may be cases when a guest booking is made without knowing the traveler’s date of birth, such as when regulations prohibit requesting this information (e.g., for job candidates). Reservations can be made without a date of birth, but ticketing cannot proceed until it is provided. The travel management company (TMC) is responsible for obtaining the date of birth from the traveler. Reservations will be cancelled if the date of birth is not provided to the agency prior to the ticketing deadline or 72 hours prior to check-in, whichever comes first. |
| Write middle name to Itinerary check | Select to enable. Note Sabre, Apollo, and Amadeus accept First name and Middle name all in the first name field. Galileo accepts the same but removes the space and truncates to one name. Worldspan ignores everything after a space in the first name so we will automatically add the first name and middle name together. |
When the setting For information required by the TSA for travel to, from, connecting in and flying over the USA is enabled with any of the options to show, the TSA options will be displayed in the user’s profile.
Review the following image depicting an example of the enabled setting and what the user sees in the profile.
- DHS Redress No.
- A Redress Number is a unique number that helps TSA eliminate watch list misidentification. If the traveler has a name similar to or the same as a name on the current terrorist watch list, and has experienced secondary security screenings at airports, they have the option of preventing this in the future by providing your Redress Number at the time of booking, which can be requested from the TSA website.
- TSA Pre Known Traveler Number
- The Known Traveler Number is a unique number assigned to "known travelers" from whom the Federal Government has already conducted a threat assessment and has determined do not pose a security threat.
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