4 days ago
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In perhaps one of the biggest shake-ups in the aviation industry in the last 50 years, boarding passes and the need to check-in for flights might be scrapped, according to a report in The Times. The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), the UN body responsible for crafting airline policy, is mulling the move, which could be implemented within "two to three years".
Through the introduction of the "digital travel credential", passengers will be able to upload their passports to their phone and pass through airports using only their face for verification. Flyers would instead download a "journey pass" to their phone when they book a flight, which contains all the booking details and other additional services bought with the ticket. The pass will be automatically updated if any changes are made to the booking.
Currently, passengers are required to check-in online or at the airport in arrival where they are presented with a boarding pass that has a barcode which is scanned as they proceed through the airport.
However, with the new measures in place, passengers with hold luggage will simply walk to the bag drop where their faces will be scanned. Meanwhile, those with just hand luggage will be scanned at the pre-security gates, which permit passengers access to the airport's central search area.
"The last upgrade of great scale was the adoption of e-ticketing in the early 2000s. The industry has now decided it's time to upgrade to modern systems that are more like what Amazon would use," Valerie Viale from Amadeus, the largest travel technology company in the world, told the outlet.
"Many airline systems haven't changed for more than 50 years because everything has to be consistent across the industry and interoperable," she added.
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However, for the system to work, airports will need to radically change their infrastructure by installing facial recognition technology to scan passport photographs and people's faces. As for the privacy concerns of passengers, ICAO said the airports will not store any information scanned by computers in the check-in process.
Any data recorded will be deleted from the computer system after 15 seconds to prevent any breaches of personal information.
While the technology's implementation is expected to shorten the journey time, some remain wary of its excessive use. Last year, planes across the globe were grounded when Microsoft crashed, owing to a faulty update, leading to passengers being stranded for hours.
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