changes are coming to the way you travel by plane within the US starting May 7th passengers within and outside the country will need to have a Real ID for domestic flights or have a valid passport and the rush is on for people who need one the state's Motor Vehicle Commission today announced an emergency program giving priority to eligible customers who need to board a flight within 14 days for life or death reasons or urgent travel plans it comes after the agency already rolled out Real ID Thursdays to keep up with the surge in demand but as Ted Goldberg reports those extra appointments don't seem to be enough how does it feel to finally have your gold star an accomplished work getting a Real ID has become an accomplishment as people booked their NBC appointments here in Freehold months ahead of time i think I did two and a half months out we booked at the end of January and I was like shocked that April was the earliest appointment i did it about three months ago and uh I knew it was important because I travel internationally and I have a passport but I still want my real ID for here in the United States starting on May 7th you won't be able to fly domestic with a driver's license unless it's a real ID mvc appointments are filling up just as quickly as they're created how does it feel to be really smart and get your real ID before everybody else did i'm happy because I know that a lot of people are in a panic about it if you're trying to book a Real ID appointment now my best advice to you is good luck because my license doesn't expire for more than 3 months I've had a lot of trouble trying to book a Real ID appointment myself when I go on the NBC's website it either says there's one appointment left which gets booked before I can fill it or there's no appointments available at all and I'm not the only person in New Jersey having this problem the appointments now are not open until the fall joanne Rajapi is the Union County Clerk i've actually had to deploy staff and expand staff into my passport office we are open on Saturdays which is a big day for us so our appointments as soon as we make them available they're gone she recommends people apply for passcards which fit in your wallet are good for 10 years and can be used to board domestic flights rajapi says a passcard might be easier to get than a real ID because of how many people are dealing with the MVC right now i think they're doing the best they can the problem is it's an overwhelming demand so many people have not applied for Real ID they just can't handle the volume the MVC says it's creating more than 3,000 appointments per day with 4600 added on Real ID Thursdays as part of a statement they said "Over the last few months the MVC has been processing record numbers of Real IDs we continue to evaluate our operations and capacity each week looking to add as many appointments for Real ID as possible the rush isn't isolated to New Jersey we're seeing a lot of mad scrambling at our New York offices the lines are out the door."

Robert Sinclair Jr works for AAA Northeast and says Real ID is far more secure than your run-of-the-mill driver's license a fake driver's license is the easiest thing in the world to obtain you go down to 42nd Street at least in the old days as for the future folks were motivated to get Real ID by wanting to leave their passports at home it was important just so we have it in our back pocket so to speak so we know we can go where we want to and not drag the passport along people who stopped by Freehold during the most recent Real ID Thursday had mostly positive things to say about their experience i did mine in uh Lawrenceville New Jersey and the I was very impressed with the um the service everything is so well organized and this one I've never been here before this one was the exact same way very well organized very surprised and um it took about maybe a half hour to get everything done it wasn't bad at all i had an appointment at 9:15 she had an appointment at 9:45 they told us to get there 15 minutes early we arrived at 9:00 they told us it's an hour wait you got to wait on the thing for the whole thing which surp I proofs of a residential address one proof of a social security number and documents adding up to six points of ID before getting to that in demand appointment everyone was very pleasant very nice i didn't have to wait that long and uh the paperwork was simple if you did your homework ahead of time the law requiring Real ID was passed by Congress 20 years ago and the original deadline to get one was May of 2008 it doesn't look like there will be another delay so domestic flyers will have to start bringing their passports in a few weeks unless they already have a Real ID or they snag an appointment in Freehold i'm Ted Goldberg NJ Spotlight News [Music]