AirAsia to implement facial recognition in ticket purchase

KUALA LUMPUR – Airline company AirAsia is aiming to implement facial recognition as a way of buying tickets for passengers in the Philippines.

In an event here on Wednesday, Capital A chief executive officer Tony Fernandes said facial recognition technology is being used by AirAsia in other countries, such as Malaysia, in booking and verifying flights.

He said this would make transactions “easier” in the Philippines.

“I am a big believer in facial recognition for payment, for security procedures,” he told reporters.

AirAsia Philippines deputy spokesperson Carlo Carongoy said they are still “clearing hurdles” before facial recognition could be implemented.

In an interview, Fernandes said they plan to increase the number of planes operating in the country from 14 to 24 this year.

“The biggest job for me as the CEO is to bring back planes, and make sure the schedule is right and it is not changing every time and to stop delays,” he told reporters.

“We have lost our slots now in Manila, so we have to adjust a few things. But that has been our number one priority, to bring back planes,” he said.

Fernandes expressed confidence that AirAsia’s 200 planes would be operational this year.

They are also looking at new international routes for Philippine flights.

Preps in place

For his part, AirAsia CEO Ricardo Isla gave assurance that following the reported entry of Omicron subvariant XBB.1.5 in the Philippines, the airline has preparations in place.

“Our safety protocols are still here, our two-pronged approach. First, the HEPA filters in our airplanes, and our passengers are still using face masks,” Isla told reporters in Filipino.

He said the airline is still conducting tracing and requiring minimum health protocols, as well as government tracking.

AirAsia has also been able to refund about 40 percent of flights that were canceled in the Philippines from 2020 to 2022.

Fifty percent of the number, Isla said, were converted to travel credit for changing schedules of the flight.

“We still have to continuously address the remaining 10 percent,” he added.

‘Ask Bo’

On Wednesday, Capital A launched the new artificial intelligence-powered online concierge “Ask Bo,” as it “fired” its former AI support bot Ava, which was riddled with various bugs.

Ask Bo was named after AirAsia Aviation Group CEO Bo Lingam.

The Ask Bo AI will be able to answer queries faster and better, Fernandes said.

It supports various languages and will be able to provide live updates on flight status, as well as changes and boarding information, among others.

“Given the size of the airline that AirAsia is, with thousands of refunds and flight change requests, humans alone cannot cope, we have to also use technology,” Fernandes said.

“We learned through AVA how to use artificial intelligence to answer complex and sizable queries better and faster. Over the last eight months, the customer experience team have zeroed in on what our guests need and want, what their top complaints are,” he added.