I have booked flight tickets for a large group of people. Unbeknownst to me, one of the passengers has two family names, and the one I used, is actually abbreviated in the passport (I know, weird). In example:
"Oliver Doe" on the ticket
"Oliver D. Smith" in the passport
I've told him that this is not a problem, but he is not easilly conviced. Personally I never use my full name, and I also change the spelling of my name to better suit ancient ticket systems that does not accept weird characters. I'm up to roughly 200 flights without issues. ;)
The passenger has a driving license with his full name, and the flight is within Schengen – return trip Denmark to Hungary on a Danish passport.
The biggest problem, is that we are flying RyanAir, who do not accept driving license as ID. Changing the name on the ticket costs €110, meaning we're probably better off buying a new ticket. Not even sure if the name change fee includes the return trip.
Will he get away with the abbreviation, if he has a driving license to "back it up"? Of course both his passport and driving license has photo, so it would be hard to argue that it's a different person – but I've heard RyanAir may be unreasonably strict.