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.
Source: USA Today
