Self-service options for air travellers on cards

Do you rue over the chance of missing a taxi to reach the airport on time? Do you curse the serpentine queue that blocks your view to the nearest ticket counter to collect your boarding pass? Do you snub your local airline carrier officials for not upgrading its facilities to smoothen the flow of passenger traffic?

If your questions are endless than your local carriers can take a leaf from the ‘FastTravel’ project that plans to change the way passengers do their reservations till they get their boarding ticket.

Based on the concept of self-service options, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) is envisaging a ‘FastTravel’ project that offers passengers greater choice of self service in check-in, baggage processing and documentation checks.
“The vision is to offer self-service options to passengers, i.e. from reservation to obtaining a boarding pass,” IATA’s project manager for FastTravel Paul Behan told XPRESS from Geneva.

He said to make FastTravel a reality, the airline industry’s approach towards its service has to change to meet the market needs. “Ultimately, passenger choice will drive a degree of harmonisation across the industry,” Behan said.

IATA’s FastTravel is the expanded business plan of Simplifying the Business programme launched in 2004. The association’s e-ticketing venture is gaining pace and by June 1 this year, IATA plans to achieve 100 per cent e-ticketing from the conventional paper ticketing service. It has so far achieved 93 per cent penetration with the airline industry reducing the cost of paper ticket from $10 (Dh36.7) to $1 (Dh3.67) for e-ticket.

But FastTravel will have certain limitations in terms of adaptability by the airline sector. “We are looking at speedier processing of issuing tickets and early check-ins, the immigration part of it will not be handled in this project,” said Behan.

Behan said the e-Gate facility offered by the Dubai Immigration at its Dubai International Airport is one of the easiest ways of reducing congestion at the immigration check counters.

Meanwhile, IATA has extended the Bar Coded Boarding Pass standard to accommodate new 2D codes that fit on the screen of mobile phones.

“We extended this check-in standard last October as the new 2D codes that fit on the screen of mobile phones enables a passenger’s mobile phone to effectively become a boarding pass,” said Lorne Riley, Corporate Communications Manager, IATA in an email interview.

He said a bar code is sent by the airline to the mobile phone (of a passenger) like an SMS. The bar code displayed on the screen on the mobile phone is scanned, using a similar process and equipment as for paper printed bar coded boarding passes.

“Prior to the new standard, the passenger could confirm seat over the phone, but still they had to collect a paper boarding pass at the airport. Now that the IATA standard for boarding passes covers mobile phones, airlines can get the full benefits of electronic boarding passes – a logical consequence of electronic ticketing,” Riley said.

IATA represents over 240 airlines comprising 94 per cent of international scheduled air traffic. It has 80 Billing and Settlement Plan covering more than 162 countries and territories that handle some $218 billion (Dh800 billion) annually.