> For EU flights especially you still check passports at the gate - indeed it's the only place they are checked.

Which countries? I fly a lot NL<>ES, ES<>DE and they don't check my passport usually. I do take it because sometimes they ask for it, but mostly they don't.

The UK obviously being the outlier; very paranoid with extremely old scanners so security takes a long time, especially at Heathrow.

I was talking about BA flights. BA check passports at the gate to all destinations aside from domestic UK ones (and maybe London-Dublin -- I haven't done that flight)

I don't believe they run any inter-schengen or other "domestic" flights, and the 5th freedom flights they do run are like Singapore to Sydney so attract passport viewing.

Security is irelevent to BA's problems.

They only have to check at entry to Schengen zone, which the UK and Ireland are outside.

Some countries have an agreement with each other where the passport check isn’t required. For instance I believe Norway and Sweden have one because they are part of the Nordic Passport Union: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_Passport_Union

I believe they still check IDs at the gate, even for internal flights. (I am pretty sure they checked my ID the last time I did one) - It is not an passport check, just an ID check at the gate to match person to ticket (as the security in UK airport just check boarding passes, not IDs)

Not BA, although I haven't flown domestic for a few months.

Airlines like Ryanair do check photo ID on domestic, but that's for revenue purposes (to stop people selling tickets on the black market)

Ah, it is just Common Travel Area that needs ID, but not passport.

Nope, you need a boarding card and that's it

The Police do have far-reaching powers under the fascist "Schedule 7" of the terrorism act 2000 to demand ID of some sort in certain circumstances, but that's not unique to flying.