Air transport enters the digital age. The boarding card and check-in will be eliminated from the procedures necessary for travel by plane according to the aviation industry review plans.
Important Changes on Photo Plain Travel: Shutterstock
It will be the largest transformation in the field in the last 50 years. The Times reports that in “Two or three years old”, passengers will be able to charge their passports on the phone and will be able to go through airports by scanning the face.
The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), the UN body responsible for politics in the field, repeals existing norms for airports and airlines and creates a new “digital travel card”, allowing the storage of passport information on personal electronic devices and their use for travelers.
Passengers will be able to download a “travel permit” on the phone when booking. It will be automatically updated if reservation changes are made. For passengers with hold luggage, the flight registration will happen when teaching luggage. Those who only travel with hand luggage will first be scanned at the pre-section gates, which allow passengers access to the central airport control area. Currently, passengers must register online or at the airport on arrival, where they receive a boarding book with a bar code that is scanned as the passenger passes through the airport, including the boarding gate.
“These changes are the most important in the last 50 years”, Said Valérie Viale, product management director at Amadeus, the largest technology company in the world.
“The last important update was the adoption of e-ticketing in the early 2000s. The industry has now decided it is time to move on modern systems that look more like what they would use Amazon,” he added.
But these plans will require the modernization of the physical infrastructure from airports, so that they have facial recognition technology and the ability to read a passport from a mobile device. Essentially, the physical infrastructure will only check the information – comparing the face with the passport – and will not store them, to eliminate the risk of data security.
In step with technology
With the help of the new technology, passengers will be able to download a “travel card” in their phone, which will contain all the details of the reservation, including any other auxiliary services, such as renting a car, which have been purchased with the flight reservation. Also, the biometric details of the passport will be stored. Along with the use of facial recognition, passengers will be able to move through the airport without removing the phone or passport from their pocket. Aware of the risk of privacy, Amadeus said he has developed a system in which passenger data is deleted within 15 seconds from each contact with a “contact point” – such as pre -section gates.
But the technology does not stop here. Imagine you have a delay, and during the flight it becomes obvious that you will lose the connection. Currently, you should go to the office of an airline to be made a new reservation and to be issued a new boarding card. In the new era, you will automatically receive a Push notification on the mobile phone from the airline with the details of the new continuation flight. The travel card will be updated automatically and you will be allowed to embark on the new flight.
“Currently, airlines have systems that are very isolated. There is a reservation system that, when the check-in opens, communicates with a delivery system and says “here are my reservations, now you can deliver them”. In the future it will be a continuous process, and the travel subscription will be dynamic ”, said Viale.
Currently, British Airways (BA), Air France-Klm, Finnair and Saudia Airlines seem to examine this technology for their passengers.
