Airline travelers without a REAL ID or equivalent will now have to pay a fee

The Transportation Security Administration announced earlier this week that passengers without a REAL ID or other acceptable documents, like a passport or tribal ID, will have to pay a $45 fee for the extra screening required to get through security.

Most current driver’s licenses are REAL IDs, which meet higher federal security standards.

“There have been 17 years for people to get compliant with REAL ID,” said Janice Kephart, who is CEO of identity compliance firm ZipID and consulted on the 9/11 commission that spawned the stricter identity requirements.

“It's only about 6% of people [who] might not be presenting a REAL ID or a biometric equivalent at this point, so it's a pretty small percentage,” she said.

And who are those folks? Mostly people who don’t travel much by air, said Ifeyinwa Davis of the Louisiana Appleseed Center for Law and Justice.

“This can also be really difficult or challenging for people who have missing birth records, for people who are dealing with the legality around their name change,” she said.

Critics of the new fee say most people will probably just pay to finally get their REAL IDs rather than deal with the hassle.

Thing is, that’s kind of the point, said Steve Lorincz, deputy executive assistant administrator for security operations at the TSA.

“For us, the big push is security. The big push is compliance. The big push is for people to get the real ID,” he said.

But if they don’t, starting Feb. 1, they’ll either need to pay the fee online in advance or expect to spend even more time going through security at the airport.