Israel’s national airline, El Al, recently finished a trial of mobile barcode boarding passes – and has announced that it will be implementing the system at Ben Gurion Airport soon.
The system is actually already in place at Ben Gurion – €180,000 worth of barcode scanners have been installed, and the system is ready to go. When it’s activated, customers will no longer have to wait in line to receive a boarding pass. They can simply check from home and get their boarding pass direct to their mobile phone in the form of a 2d barcode.
Source: ynetnews.com
From the release:
“We are ready with the cellular service that many airlines around the world use,” said David Maimon, El Al’s senior vice president of customer service. “The company is able to activate the cellular service now in most airports around the world, but since half of the company’s activity is at Ben Gurion, the company has decided to start the service at the airport at home.”
What we think?
The International Air Transport Association recently estimated that sometime during 2010, pretty much every airport in the world will be capable of mobile boarding passes – with a global saving of 1.5 billion dollars per year from not having to print tickets. Travel is, without doubt, the most succesful implementaion of 2d barcode technology. We can only hope it spreads out from there.
Cian, thank you for the article! That’s great news for NeoMedia and it shows how airlines can save so much money (in this case $1.5B/ year!)