Chinese carriers could adopt electronic boarding passes by 2020: IATA

Chinese airlines are expected to adopt electronic boarding pass services by 2020, and China could be the country setting the standards for such services on the global aviation stage, a recent survey conducted by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) showed.

The domestic aviation industry faces many challenges related to the upgrading of traveler experiences, including the imbalances caused by rising travel demand and insufficient aviation services, the need to provide tailored passenger experiences and the need to ensure unified aviation services, said Hou Kan, regional director of airports, passengers, cargos and security at IATA North Asia.

In the future, passengers could check in biometrically and online as well as via call centers and their mobile phones, according to Hou, adding that the process of checking luggage in is likely to be moved out of airports, with door-to-door services also looking possible.

The IATA survey also showed that if all airlines in China started using e-boarding passes instead of paper boarding passes in 2017, by 2020, it could have helped the airlines save a whopping 7.83 billion yuan ($1.24 billion) in costs and save 4.27 million tons of paper, as one boarding pass on average uses 0.25 grams of paper.

Electronic boarding is already becoming standard, since 74 percent of passengers had already been using them during the 12 months before a survey was conducted by IATA in December 2017.

According to separate data from the IATA, 60 percent of passengers in China who took flights with Air China checked in away from airports in February this year.

The CAAC also said that providing paperless services in airports across the country is also one of its key projects for 2018.