To ease the check system, French airline Air France plans to test biometric boarding passes that would allow passengers to be fast-tracked through airport checks using a scan of their fingerprints. The new technology will permit registered travelers to bypass general boarding on shuttle flights between Paris Charles de Gaulle and Amsterdam Schiphol. Scheduled to start later this year, this new check system will allow passengers to cross the automated gate only after complete verification. The passengers will have to provide their index fingerprint, which will be encoded in a personal smart card. They will have to flash their card in front of a machine at the boarding gate, which will read the information. After complete verification, automated gate will open for the passenger. The airline also plans to integrate radio microchips into baggage tags at the Paris airport for flights to and from Amsterdam and Tokyo. This will ensure that the bags are monitored throughout the airport. A text-messaging service that will alert customers when their luggage will arrive at baggage claim carousels will also be introduced in nearby future. If the tests are successful, the biometric cards will be offered to between 10 and 15 percent of Air France customers. Image Credit Source: USA Today

There is an increasing number of websites that can help travelers to find the best of cheap flight deals available. Momondo and Sidestep.com are the sites that recently joined the many websites that offer automatic, constant searches of booking engines. While you look for the best airfare, there are certain things that that should be kept in mind. The first and the foremost thing which should be made clear is that there is no magic bullet airfare website. Here, I’m discussing about few of the websites. Travelocity’s Canadian affiliate and Mobissimo.com are the sites that can help you if you are looking for a flight between two foreign countries. The sites are very useful but the drawback lies in the fact that these sites don’t include all the discount foreign airlines, such as Ryanair. No doubt, majority of sites charge a booking fee but Kayak and Sidestep.com are two such websites that don’t charge a booking fee. However, neither of the sites includes Southwest, SkyBus, Allegiant, some super-low-cost airlines and many of the international airlines’ lowest discount fares. Kayak, Sidestep and Mobissimo are the sites that don’t have good flexible date searches, so if you’re willing to adjust your travel dates to find the best deal, these sites are not for you. You can search on third-party sites such as Travelocity and then book the fare on the site of the airline. This way you can avoid booking fees and gets bonus frequent flyer miles. Many airlines such as Southwest Airlines, Skybus and Allegiant Airlines release their fares and other relevant information to any site other than their own. Also, Spirit Airlines 1 cent or $1 fares only appear on Spirit’s site. It can be concluded that all the sites have advantages and drawbacks and there is no magic bullet airfare website so, you need to do proper planning and good amount of homework to enjoy budget-friendly trip.