Air France Begins to Trial NFC-Based Boarding
Skift Take
Testing NFC opens some possibilities, but any system that requires participants to buy new hardware, as opposed to using their existing device, faces adoption hurdles.
Select Air France Passengers who own smartphones equipped with Near Field Communications (NFC) technology, will participate in a trial of an NFC-Based Boarding system on flights between Toulouse-Blagnac and Paris-Orly, using the airline's Touch&Pass app, over the next six months.
Passengers will receive an NFC boarding pass directly on their smartphones, allowing them to tap their mobile phone on dedicated readers at Toulouse-Blagnac airport to move through the security control, lounge access and boarding. The primary advantage: NFC boarding passes work even if the phone is locked or the battery is dead.
The lack of universal adoption of NFC systems on smartphones has limited confidence in the long-term success of these applications world-wide, but NFC-equipped smartphones are increasingly popular in Europe.
This trial is
