My finance and I just returned from a two week holiday with my family in southwest Louisiana. I live in Washington state and travel home each year for the Christmas and New Year holidays. We flew direct flights from Seattle to Houston, which is the norm for my holiday travels.

Yesterday (1 Jan 2010), exactly one week following the attempted downing of an airliner above Detroit, we were surprise when the ticket agents in the main terminal at IAH did not check our ID’s as we checked three bags and had our boarding passes issued. When questioned, the agent insisted that it wasn’t necessary to confirm our identities.

We proceeded to our departure gate and, upon arrival at the TSA checkpoint, we informed the security personnel of the security oversight we had just observed. The response from the TSA person was a casual “Sorry.”

When we arrived at our departure gate I reported the lack of security to the airline’s gate agent. After hearing my story the agent simply attributed this to “human error”. I responded that this was negligence, not human error. His demeanor did not change.

We are grateful to have arrived home safely. I have very little confidence in the security measures the airlines & TSA have in place.