I was nearly denied boarding and caused a flight delay and a special announcement was made on the plane due my incompetence. You see, I was flying out of Munich in business class and ran into three problems. First, I miscalculated the time it would take to walk to the gate from the lounge. Then, I ran into a secondary passport control officer who would not let me pass because I hadn't signed my passport. I was literally the only one there so I guess he had nothing better to do than cause a situation. That turned into an absurd argument worthy of the Far Side. He would not let me sign it in front of him. But if I signed it before I arrived when he wasn't looking it would be valid. Eventually, he called a supervisor who told him to let me pass. Then I ran into a secondary baggage x-ray checkpoint. There were two of us passengers there. A lady in front of me who couldn't find her boarding pass and me. As we waited for her, they announced my name on the intercom. A FA from my flight was looking for me on the other side of baggage x-ray. The FA and I attempted to convince the security guy to allow me to go ahead of the lady that couldn't find her boarding pass, but the security guy wouldn't allow it. So, we waited. Eventually, I got on the plane and my supervisor was asking what took me so long. Then they made an announcement on the plane to ensure that everyone signed their passport. I just pointed to the intercom.
From my experience, the airlines don't care that much about middle names but passport/customs might care.
For reasons unknown to me, I was almost denied entry into China and spent almost an hour in a little office while they investigated me. As soon as they scanned my passport getting off the plane in China, it triggered something in their system and the passport lady was like, Oh, you're the one we're looking for.
