Upvote:6
As the text says, this was added as a part of a 1998 US Government regulation that required the airlines to collect the full name of all passengers, as well as to "solicit" contact details for an emergency contact.
Boarding passes at the time were always torn in half at boarding, with the airline keeping the larger part of the pass (along with the "coupon" from the ticket that would normally have been stapled onto the back of the boarding pass at check-in) - and the text above would have been printed on that part of the boarding pass so in effect the airline was collecting this information at boarding.
I do recall airlines asking passengers to fill in this information at the gate, however not for very many years, and I don't believe it was ever actually enforced (thus meeting the requirement to "solicit" this information, without an actual need to force it).
Obviously now days the passenger details are fully computerized, so the passenger name part of this form is not required (and arguably never was due to it being on the ticket anyway). However this form still met the requirements of "soliciting" emergency contact details, even if the airline knew that nobody every bothered to fill them in.
The requirement (with slightly different wording) still exists in the current Code of Federal Regulations, and airlines must
Solicit, or cause to be solicited, a name and telephone number of a contact from each passenger who is a U.S. citizen
Some airlines certainly do prompt for emergency contact information during online check-in, however I can't say that I've been asked for it at a check-in desk for some time so enforcement of this rule is seemingly fairly lax. I suspect that somewhere in most airlines Contact of Carriage is a statement that you should provide emergency contact details, thus meeting the requirement without having the need for the airline to actually do anything!