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Japanese Airline Rolls Out Wireless Chip Check-In

Posted by Zonk on from the no-lines-no-fuss-wave-of-the-future dept.

ThinkPad760 writes "Early in September All Nippon Airways (ANA) of Japan will complete their rollout of a ticketless check-in and boarding pass service called SKiP! You book the ticket online thru either a computer or your mobile phone. Prior to arriving at the airport, you 'place' the ticket onto your IC-chipped ANA Mileage card, or have the booking dowloaded into your IC-enabled phone. When you get to the airport you just wave your mobile or IC card at the reader. It confirms your booking, the light turns green, and off you go to the gate. At the gate it's the same thing. I've been using this service out of Haneda to Osaka for the past year. It is fantastic. Since I never have to check bags, I turn up to the airport just short while before my flight, walk straight through security and onto the plane."

4 of 86 comments (clear)

  1. Not new by sam_paris · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Ticketless check isn't new i've done this with British Airways for every flight i've taken this year.

  2. New tech, old idea by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    They've had print-the-barcode-and-scan-it check-in here (Australia) for years now. You print your barcode when you book your flight and scan it at a machine at the airport, which then confirms and even lets you do things like change seats if there are others available. Then you just walk on through (or check bags and walk on through... and I can't see how you could get around that, bags being physical objects and all).

    OK, so no fancy ic+mobile+rf thingy, but it seems to me that scanning a barcode might actually be easier than the system described.

    1. Re:New tech, old idea by drsmithy · · Score: 2, Interesting

      They've had print-the-barcode-and-scan-it check-in here (Australia) for years now. You print your barcode when you book your flight and scan it at a machine at the airport, which then confirms and even lets you do things like change seats if there are others available. Then you just walk on through (or check bags and walk on through... and I can't see how you could get around that, bags being physical objects and all).

      The only other downside is if you're 6'2 and want to sit in an exit row, you can't allocate yourself one, as someone has to ask you the obligatory "in the unlikely event of an emergency, blahblahblah" and make sure you look physically capable of opening the emergency exit. One trick I've learnt, however, is that the service desk *inside* the terminal, past the security gates, is also able to reallocate seats. So now if I'm travelling without baggage, I just wander straight through the security gates and get bumped to an exit row there.

      Unfortunately, a lot more people seem to know about the extra leg room in exit rows these days, so it's gotten to the point now that arriving any less than an hour before departure means there's none left :(.

  3. Re:"Ticketless"? by b0s0z0ku · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Are there any airlines that still issue actual, physical tickets? I haven't touched one of those multi-coupon, red inked tickets since at least 2001 and I fly eight to ten times a year.

    LOT Polish. I had a flight out of Warsaw at 10 am and I needed to get there from Krakow in the morning. The other choice was a slow overnight train, so I went to the airline office on Basztowa and bought a ticket for the 6am plane the next day. Paid 200zl (about $65) cash, and no one looked at me like I had two heads for paying cash (unlike in the USA where I'd have got the third degree for paying cash for a one-way).

    -b.