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An Air Premia aircraft. /Courtesy of Air Premia

A security breach occurred at a South Korean airline when boarding passes bearing the same passenger's name were issued to two people, allowing a passenger who had not completed the normal check-in process to board an aircraft. The passenger reportedly passed through pre-boarding identity verification procedures without being stopped. The airline acknowledged errors during the check-in process and took disciplinary and preventive measures against those responsible.

According to information obtained by AsiaToday on Tuesday, two boarding passes bearing the name of Passenger A were issued to Passenger A and a traveling companion on an Air Premia flight from New York to Incheon on Oct. 15. Both passengers used the boarding passes to complete departure and boarding procedures and board the aircraft. They were also confirmed to have been seated next to each other on board.

The problem was that one of the two passengers had been recorded in the airline's computer system as having not checked in. Although an error occurred during the issuance of the boarding passes, it went undetected during subsequent identity verification and boarding procedures.

The error was discovered after the aircraft doors had closed. Air Premia's New York office informed the cabin crew that a passenger had not boarded according to the check-in records. After confirming that the passenger's traveling companion was on board, the New York office asked the cabin crew to investigate.

A flight attendant then went to the seats in question and compared the two passengers' passports and boarding passes, confirming that boarding passes had been issued under the same name. Air Premia corrected the ticketing error on the spot and reissued a valid boarding pass.

The incident is expected to raise concerns because the boarding pass error went undetected despite multiple verification procedures before boarding. The passengers passed through facial recognition checks without any problems, and the identity mismatch was not detected even though their boarding passes were checked at the boarding gate.

Air Premia acknowledged that an employee had made a mistake during the check-in process. "It is true that an error occurred during check-in," an Air Premia official said. "The duplicate issuance of boarding passes was overlooked during check-in, and the passengers also passed through the facial recognition system without any problems. However, after boarding, we identified and corrected the error while comparing the computerized records with the actual number of passengers on board."

"Following the incident, we provided additional training to employees of the local ground handling company and removed the employee responsible for issuing the boarding passes from those duties," the official added. "The headquarters also issued a warning to the head of our New York office."

                                                                                                          Jeong Min-hoon