A report by Steve Creedy in The Australian says that Virgin Blue and Qantas are investigating new environmentally friendly technology that will allow passengers to download a boarding pass to their mobile phone and use it to board the plane.
The two airlines confirmed yesterday that they were looking at the technology in the wake of a decision by the body representing international airlines to adopt global standards for it.
Under the new system, passengers would register their mobile phone number with an airline at the time of booking. The airline would send a two-dimensional bar code as a text message that can be stored on the phone or personal digital assistant.
The bar code becomes the boarding pass and is read directly from the screen of the phone at the gate, eliminating paper from the check-in process.
The International Air Transport Association announced on Thursday that it was establishing a global standard that would pave the way for the use of the bar codes.
The IATA standard uses existing codes from Europe, North America and Japan, and can be read on a single type of scanner that is cheap and available globally.
Report by The Mole from The Australian
