Summary
- Alaska Airlines introduced Mobile Confirm, a biometric program that permits passengers with US or Canadian passports to skip airport queues through passport verification.
- Passengers can control their digital identity on their smart devices, eliminating the necessity to wait on the gate or for a customer support agent to envision their passports.
- To enroll in Mobile Confirm, passengers must download the Airside Digital Identity app, take a selfie, scan their passport photo page, and hold the device against the passport’s back cover to read the safety chip.
Enhancing the passenger experience appears to be the continued trend for airlines today, with more carriers embracing using advanced technological programs to assist passengers save time. Alaska Airlines is the most recent to hop on this bandwagon with a brand new biometric technique to allow passengers to skip plenty more airport queues through passport verification.
What’s Mobile Confirm?
The oneworld alliance member has been step by step transforming the airport experience for passengers, completely reimagining how they get from the lobby to the aircraft boarding door – and the deployment of biometric identities is at the guts of this digital vision. For Alaska Airlines, the top game is for passengers to flow through all airport checkpoints just by controlling their digital identity on their smart devices.
And starting today, every Alaska Airlines passenger flying internationally and using US or Canadian passport can use the airline’s recent biometric strategic program, Mobile Confirm. With this recent program – powered by Airside & Onfido, passengers can easily have their passports verified by the airline, allowing them to skip the necessity to wait around within the lobby.
Mobile Confirm further eliminates the necessity for passengers to attend on the gate and for a customer support agent to envision their passports and travel documents since they’ll now be quickly taken care of safely and securely within the comfort of their homes. Loads of time is undoubtedly saved, as highlighted by Charu Jain, Senior Vice President of Innovation and Merchandising:
“We’re investing in technology that takes processes traditionally only available at an airport and makes them possible out of your smartphone. This recent Mobile Confirm technology creates a seamless airport experience for guests traveling internationally – eliminating the uncertainty that comes with having to attend in airport lines.”
How does Mobile Confirm work?
While this recent digital introduction sounds enticing for passengers, one is perhaps interested in how it really works and is perhaps delighted to learn that it’s pretty straightforward. Passengers must first create a digital identity by downloading the Airside Digital Identity mobile application on iOS or Android. Once downloaded, an unobstructed selfie of the passenger is required, alongside a scan of the passport photo page.
All that’s left is holding the used device against the inside the passport’s back cover to permit the applying to read the embedded security chip. Once all of the relevant information is verified through the scanned passport photo page and the chip reading, the passenger’s digital identification is thus created and might be securely stored on the used device.
Photo: Airside Mobile
Before each international Alaska Airlines trip, the airline’s mobile application will prompt passengers to open their AirAsia application, where they have to select their departure date and placement. A confirmation code can even have to be entered, giving a one-time consent for the Alaska Airlines mobile application to make use of their digital identity for verification.
This need for consent ultimately gives passengers control over when and where their digital identities will be shared. Once authenticated, the airline is notified, and passengers now not have to see a customer support agent. This straightforward process only must be repeated for every trip to make it seamless and permit passengers to reach on the airport able to fly.
Bottom line
Although digitizing the airport process for passengers brings quite a few advantages to all parties, from the passengers to the airport and airline personnel by way of convenience and sustainability, it may be pretty scary for every little thing to be situated inside one’s smart devices. While a security breach is one fear, perhaps the worst is when passengers lose these devices.
Photo: Joe Kunzler | Easy Flying
But nonetheless, digitalization for airport processes is undoubtedly required in the trendy day as more people take to the skies with the expectation of arriving at their destination punctually. Airports can only handle that much capability, and airlines actually wish to be on time to reduce operational disruptions and reduce passenger complaints.
Would you give Mobile Confirm a try? Tell us within the comments below.