Boarding passes and check-in: are they still really needed?

[Gibon2]

Various recent threads have got me wondering: in this era of e-tickets and home printing, is there really any point in continuing with the traditional buy-ticket-->check-in-->get-boarding-pass model of getting SLF onto planes?

Since several carriers now allow you to check-in several weeks in advance of travel, and since many more allow (or even oblige) you to select your seat when you first buy the ticket, what's the point of having a check-in process separate from the process of buying the ticket? What's the point of having a ticket and a boarding pass, when both contain identical information? Why not have a single-step process of buying a ticket, that has a barcode and seat number on it, and that allows you to board the plane?

Discuss.

[JWP2010]

It is a reasonable assumption to make that with advance seat selection etc boarding passes may be a thing of the past. Except when you turn up at the airport with your advance seat selection print out to discover that particular seat does not exist and here's your new one. Happened to me just two weeks ago - business class on one of the world's leading...oh hang on, can't say anymore.
So not quite there yet with this particular idea.

[ExXB]

MC99 (Montreal Convention 1999 which replaced the Warsaw Convention) requires passengers hold 'tickets' and 'baggage checks' for international air transport.

If/when they get around to revising it they likely will change it to reflect today's reality, but that's not much of a priority for anyone.

[PAXboy]

It will happen but I think we are up to ten years away from 100% electronic as there are many factors giving drag and not many giving lift.



In the major restructuring of the airlines - no point investing in a (say) 2 yr project when you don't know where you'll be.
The major alliances would like to trumpet such a thing across their networks - but how long for the small ones to do this and who pays?
The technology is by no means settled yet. Until there are agreed standards for data packages between a dozen different smart phone operating systems and tablets (Mozilla just announcing their entry to this maket) and ALL the carriers booking systems - nothing can proceed as it would be an open ended road.
Fraud.
Inertia of the Status Quo
The truly horrendous financial costs - the existing e-ticket systems are still evolving and not yet full depreciated

On the other hand:


If you can get international agreement
If you can get all the majors to use the same protocols
If you can get them all to pay all the costs
If you can get all the govts to agree
If you can ensure that those pax not able to do this yet - are not excluded
If you can ensure that smaller carriers not able to do this yet - are not excluded

... then you make things marginally easier for your customer and hope to get your money back over five years - or more.

If I carry a piece of paper/card that may have writing and a 2D barcode on it - or I carry my mobile/cell phone with the same information - my experience is about the same!

Sorry to be a damp rag but I was in telecommunications for 27 years. I was involved with the introduction of the 'swipe card' telephone in retail outlets in 1983 (Major trial site). Those phones had all the technology to send the secure information for banks to use for full electronic funds transfer. That is, the money leaves your bank and goes to the retailer bank AT THE TIME of the purchase. In the UK, 29 years later, we still don't have that!

Now, the situation we are discussing here is different with many, many, other factors and, for the boarding pass, the tech problems are not yet solved.

I would like to see the boarding card that has an RFID chip in it. Radio-frequency identification - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rfid) This would be the twin of the one that is also attached to your suitcase and so both you and the case can be checked electronically. As your step from the jetway to the a/c the chip in your card is read and your name, seat number etc. shows on a display by the door and the system gets a postivie event of you boarding. If you are boarding the wrong a/c? Easy. All without you having to present a card or phone display.

But this won't happen either, even though the technology has existed for over ten years and is mature! The carriers have chosen to live with the level of lost bags and missing pax - rather than pay the money for a system to fix it. Who mentioned long term investment vs short term (non) profits? :p

Back to the bar! :}

[Shack37]

We can also do away with baggage handlers and load our own 20kg suitcases as well.

[Malone]

We were always looking forward to the day when the boarding classes were "pinned" as this would have made it much easier to track down the last missing passengers for boarding! Although, I suppose that it could pose some privacy issues (mind you, can't you be located though your mobile phone now?).
I think that the nearest they have got now is the system showing whether or not you have gone through central search.

[Sunnyjohn]

Italian railways seem to be ahead of the game here where, on some trains, you only need your credit card and booking information. On the Spanish ALSA coaches you can simply show your purchase details on your phone and that will be accepted as confirmation to travel. However, in both these examples there are no security situations like there are with the airlines. Ticketless journeys by rail using an iPhone or similar will be widespread in Europe within five years. Air travel - who can say?

[Peter47]

If you only sell non refundable tickets and don't offer connections it would be perfectly possible to do away with the check in process and instead only have a baggage drop. This is the case now for U2/FR, etc. However flexible travelers are constantly changing their reservations. Also seat reservations are now seen as a way of raising anciliary revenue (it may upset many passengers off but thats a separate argument) and you have to deal with those who don't wish to pay extra. This would make the process tricky for a legacy carrier.

I personally would like to be able to print off boarding passes a couple of weeks in advance - very useful if you could print off the return journey before leaving home - but this will only work if the airline business model lets you select your seat in advance.

How many times have you checked in and found that your seat has been reallocated? Quite often in my case.

[occasional]

About 30 years ago there was an airline (Braniff) that operated without tickets.

They were also the only airline that ever managed to "lose" my reservation.

[WHBM]

Several of these ideas have been ..... and gone.

Back in the latter Soviet days, Ilyushin 86 designed with entrance on lower level with baggage carried on by pax and dropped off there, they then went upstairs to the seating. Reverse on arrival. Unfortunately not really compatible with the way security checks developed, although Russian operators continued with it until the 86 was withdrawn in recent years.

BA Shuttle (and its Eastern predecessor) had ticketing on board, so no advance arrangements required, although as the years passed more and more Shuttle pax seemed to have tickets and the number sold on board fell away. Again I suspect the dead hand of security.