MMS BOARDING:BMI, WHICH CARRIES more than 500,000 passengers through Dublin Airport each year, is trialling a system that will allow customers to have their boarding passes delivered electronically to their mobile phone or electronic organiser.
The check-in service was launched this week on services from London Heathrow to Edinburgh and Manchester (one way) and from Belfast City to Heathrow (return).
BMI is the first British airline to introduce the paper-free system. From tomorrow most airlines around the world will have switched totally to electronic ticketing.
The 240 airlines belonging to the International Air Transport Association (IATA), which account for 94 per cent of international air travel, have agreed to paperless ticketing from June 1st.
IATA carriers have up to now been issuing some 400 million paper tickets a year. IATA believes the change will save 50,000 mature trees a year.
Under its paperless ticketing trial BMI delivers a barcode boarding pass to mobile phones with picture messaging (MMS) capabilities. The barcode is scanned twice - once at the security checkpoint and again at the boarding gate - while written flight information contained in the text message is checked by cabin crew.
The barcode will work only once, to prevent passengers from gaining access to the secure departure zone when they are not meant to be there.
Peter Spencer, managing director of BMI, said the new system will offer customers the opportunity to bypass check-in processes.
The new system will allow passengers to go straight to security or to BMI's quick bag-drop stations if they have luggage to check in. The company is using the new system for a trial period of three months.