Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The hottest change in the airline industry is the rapid move to BCBP, bar code boarding passes, whose use has nearly doubled in the past year. By the end of 2010 airports should have 100 percent BCBP coverage, meaning that airlines should be able to adopt this service if they want to, allowing anyone with any type of mobile phone to check in by showing the bar code from his or her phone: the end of the paper check-ins. The change is a particular boon for people who are traveling and who don’t have easy access to printers, possibly most airline passengers. Currently, 115 airlines use this and another 23 plan to.
Iata, at its annual media conference in Geneva Tuesday 15 December outlines some of the other improvements passengers will see in coming months, with the goal of moving people through airports faster.
More self-service, requested by passengers
Passengers say they want more self-service in general, and the industry is offering a growing number of services online, from pre-flight check-ins to “bags ready-to-go”, which lets passengers deliver bags tagged and ready to go. Air Canada uses a kiosk for this at London Heathrow and 22 airlines in all are starting to use the system. SAS is using biometrics, with temporary storage, to match passengers to their bags at the drop-off point, and passengrs use a finger ID to self-board.
Document scanning is now in use at 117 airports, to allow passengers to scan travel documents such as passports, to be transmitted to government agencies.
Fewer lost bags, says airline industry
Lost baggage lines could be a thing of the past with self-service channels to report missing bag, now in service in 16 airports. Baggage mishandling fell by 20 percent in 2008, Iata reports, thanks largely to its Baggage Improvement Program (BIP), which identified 90 percent of the problems at the airports that opted to call on the service. Sao Paolo’s mishandling fell by 50 percent, for example.
Nevertheless, high tech solutions won’t solve all problems and Iata points out that travelers themselves need to do their part. One key suggestion: always put your itinerary inside your bag. And make sure your bag has more identification than one small tag with an elastic string, which can easily be cut off. Be creative: remember those stickers on suitcases from all the places they had traveled to, once the hallmark of world travelers.
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