Near-field communication for airline travel

Mobile phones enabled with near-field communication (NFC) can help make an airline traveler’s experience more enjoyable while reducing costs companies and enhancing security.

• Booking: Upon booking, an electronic ticket can be downloaded securely to the phone via an NFC reader or over the air, and stored on the phone's chip.

• Check-in: NFC readers within the airport can be used for immediate local check-in, triggering issue of the boarding pass and delivery to the phone over the air. Travelers can also perform a more classic mobile check-in and receive their boarding pass over the air.

• Boarding: Unmanned boarding gates equipped with readers can automatically admit passengers with valid boarding passes on their phones in the aircraft.

• Security: Unmanned security gates equipped with readers automatically admit passengers with valid boarding passes stored on their phones. In future, this step could be enriched with a biometric.

• While these are more obvious uses of NFC-enabled phones, there are further innovations in development with the goal of:

• Speeding up the entire process at the airport, reducing queues and enabling airports to increase airport capacity.

• Reducing the need for printing boarding passes and reduce associated costs.

• Enable direct contact with the traveler.