Alaska Airlines lets minors fly without ID?

I was watching the news last night with my dad, and Alaska Airlines seems to have got themselves into a bit of a spot. It seems that they allowed a underage girl (age 15) to buy a airline ticket paying in $1 and $5 bills for the ticket and fly out of Juneau to meet up with her boyfriend (someone in North Carolina she met online) and get married. I did not hear the entire story on what the girl was up to, but apparently the airline allowed her to board the plane without checking her ID or anything because of some policy not to check the ID of anyone under 17.

Somehow this policy does not make me feel very safe flying their planes. I'm not sure if it is industry wide stupidity or just Alaska Airlines that has that policy, but it seems to me like not checking ID on someone that buys a ticket with $1 and $5 bills is a little careless on the airline's part - isn't it?

I would much prefer they ID even the babies. I mean, shoot, aren't they enabling kidnappers to fly off with children by not seeing who's getting on the plane? I'm not even going where I'm sure you're at now. The FAA needs to step on toes and tell them folks they will keep our skies safer and question people that buy one way tickets with cash in small bills no matter how old (or young) they look.

For more information check out the article in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer