Mobile barcoding is quickly becoming a standard for the air travel industry, with boarding passes being sent to users phones via SMS as 2d barcodes. Today though, Air France claims to have become the first airline to to initiate a test of Near-Field Communications for it’s mobile boarding passes.
What’s NFC?
NFC is an extremely short-range (10 cm or so) wireless technology, that allows mobile devices to read RFID tags, or communicate with other NFC devices.
The Air France pilot would require passengers to swipe their mobile devices over an NFC reader after check in. This loads an electronic boarding pass into the device, which can be read other airport staff with another NFC device.
The six-month scheme is only available to Air France frequent flyers travelling between Nice and Paris Orly airports
From the release:
Agnes Henry Scalliet, Grand Riviera department manager at Nice Côte d’Azur Airport said “NFC mobile boarding passes bring more efficiency to the airport traveller experience by replacing traditional desk visits with time-saving self-service options and getting rid of paper boarding passes that drive up costs,” she said.
Air France regional director Michel Pognonec said “the NFC chip and a restructured information flow speeds up the traveller’s airport journey. This experiment will help to progressively build the ideal airport journey for our travellers of tomorrow.”
What we think?
I’ll be interested to see the results of this pilot, but right off the bat I can’t imagine that NFC will have the edge on barcodes in this industry. Both of these techonologies fulfill the requirements for “paperless” ticketing – the big difference is that with mobile barcodes you can check in on-line and get the barcode sent to your phone. NFC requires you to physically check-in and use the swipe machine. It’s still paperless, but it’s no more convenient than regular paper tickets. Mobile barcodes, on the other hand, actually do make the process more convenient for passengers.
