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U.S.|‘No Appointments Here’: A Mad Dash to Get a Real ID Ahead of the Deadline
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/02/us/real-id-passport-domestic-flights.html
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A Real ID, passport or other federally recognized document will be required starting next week for domestic flights. Good luck booking an appointment.
May 2, 2025, 5:02 a.m. ET
Some have logged on late at night. Others have driven for hours. And some have just given up. All in the hunt for a coveted appointment for a Real ID.
Starting on Wednesday, travelers in the United States will need a Real ID, passport or other federally recognized document to board domestic flights, a requirement that has sent many Americans scrambling for the security-enhanced, star-emblazoned identification cards.
Perhaps nowhere is the search for appointments as intense as it is in New Jersey, where just 17 percent of state-issued IDs are Real IDs, according to a recent CBS News analysis of data from state motor vehicle agencies across the country. No other state had a lower compliance rate.
Melissa Sussko, 26, of Nutley, N.J., said the only reason she had managed to find an appointment for a Real ID at the Motor Vehicle Commision office in Wayne, N.J., was because a friend had recommended looking for openings on the agency’s website at midnight. So she logged on at midnight and snagged one.
Another friend, she said, was planning to drive to Cape May, on the southern tip of New Jersey, to get her Real ID at the only Motor Vehicle Commission office where she could find an appointment.
“Everyone I know is fighting to get one,” Ms. Sussko said. “You can’t find any, at all.”
Al Sohi, 54, a driving instructor in North Caldwell, N.J., said he had given up looking for an appointment and planned to use his passport if he needed to travel.
