British Airways trialling biometric check-in for international flights

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

• Nick says:

  19 Nov19 November 06:50

  Why not just remove the chips from passports and implant them in all of us?

  Oh, hang on….

  • Ryan says:

    19 Nov19 November 07:43

    Jeeez, before you suggest stuff like that, you’d have to make sure China have trialed it first…

  • Gordon says:

    19 Nov19 November 08:16

    You already have the chip if you had your Covid booster jab….

    • G says:

      19 Nov19 November 08:19

      🤡

    • Mike Hunt says:

      19 Nov19 November 11:07

      Gordon – perhaps they combined the “chip” with your BA Executive Club Number

      • Dayle says:

        19 Nov19 November 18:57

        The “mentals” ended up being right about the vax so… when you stop and think, you may realise too

        • KevinS says:

          19 Nov19 November 20:49

          Dayle are you another mental?

          🤪

      • Gordon says:

        19 Nov19 November 19:25

        Mike Hunt. BAEC, That would be a complete waste of time with the state of their IT system….

  • KevinS says:

    19 Nov19 November 09:57

    Love reading mentals saying stuff like this 😂 🤪

  • Andrew. says:

    19 Nov19 November 11:08

    Only the riff-raff…

    Have you ever met a member of the Illuminati who has a tattoo?

• Himalayan Hiker says:

  19 Nov19 November 08:04

  Dulles also used Biometrics for our flight back to the UK. Look at the camera and proceed. Very smooth and efficient compared with normal process.

  • Graeme says:

    19 Nov19 November 10:17

    Had the opposite experience at Dulles boarding an A380 – with the camera not recognising some passengers and staff loudly saying it was quicker to just scan the boarding cards (and doing so).

• Lee says:

  19 Nov19 November 08:08

  With BT’s famous mastery of IT, this can’t possibly fail…

  • Mike Hunt says:

    19 Nov19 November 11:09

    Oh gosh BT have a hand in this as well – perhaps their share price might rise if they get it right

    • Lee says:

      20 Nov20 November 07:57

      Hah! That’ll teach me to hit Submit without proofreading! Damn these fat fingers!

• SydneySwan says:

  19 Nov19 November 08:12

  Is this an episode of ‘The Capture”?

  • Mike Hunt says:

    19 Nov19 November 11:11

    Oh great program (and totally true) – although they should not really have been allowed to conduct the Liz truss and Kwasi Kwarteng experiment outside the laboratory

• Roberto says:

  19 Nov19 November 08:13

  I was offered this. Flying on Sunday into malaga but connecting from Singapore.

  First issue is that it’s IP protected so won’t work outside the UK. But my VPN sorted that and the next issue is that after uploading my boarding pass it hangs on the scan your ID page..

  Now it could be that it’s more than 24hrs before my flight leaves LHR or it could be that the shake down is finding more bugs than Matt Hancock.

  I will try again later..

  • Track says:

    19 Nov19 November 17:51

    You have too much time on your hands, mate.

  • ediflyer says:

    20 Nov20 November 09:38

    Sounds like fantastic BA IT as ever…

• Tony says:

  19 Nov19 November 08:19

  So Group 1 drops down the pecking order even further….
  1. Groups 1 to 3 now board en-masse…bunfight boarding.
  2. Groups from 3 to 9 who check their hand baggage in at the gate board first.
  3. Pax with the new id system…board first.
  4. Pax with young kids….up to teenagers…board first.
  So, group1 might be lucky to find space in the lockers!
  Priority passengers in group 1….count for nothing in BA any more.

  • Blair Waldorf Salad says:

    19 Nov19 November 10:53

    This was my inmediate thought. Priority boarding has become a joke with BA. I love the Swiss experience in ZRH; gate staff looking aghast at anyone trying to board past them before their group is called, and adding some sauce to their reaction by saying “While you’re here…that cabin bag is way too big and we’re going to gate check it”

• Simon says:

  19 Nov19 November 08:25

  I’ve noticed at Frankfurt airport there isn’t a document check at the gate quite often. On Monday I was flying back to Bristol and just scanned my boarding pass at the gate, the flight at the adjacent gate was going to London and they did a document check for that flight.

• riku says:

  19 Nov19 November 08:32

  I don’t understand what problem this fixes. Immigration will still want to see your passport. If immigration don’t need to see it (eg when I fly inside Schengen there is no immigration) then who do you need to show your passport to? Last month I flew Helsinki-Stockholm and didn’t show my passport or stand in front of a camera. Just do online checkin and show a barcode to the boarding gate.

  • riku says:

    19 Nov19 November 08:35

    Now I understand it’s more related to this part >>The technology has been in use on domestic flights since 2017 with passenger scans taken at security and checked during boarding<<
    And that exists because Heathrow mixes up international transfer passengers and domestic passengers and needs to make sure international transfer pax don't get on a domestic flight and get into the UK bypassing immigration.
    So all this effort with the app and taking your photo is to help out a shortcoming in the design of Heathrow airport??

    • TGLoyalty says:

      19 Nov19 November 09:43

      They already have that designed in

    • John says:

      19 Nov19 November 11:41

      No you have missed the point again.

      If you fly from Helsinki to, let’s say, Doha, you need to show your passport to the airline agent at the gate to verify that you are the person named on the ticket, and (if you haven’t done it at check-in) to verify that you can enter the destination country.

      BA wishes to eliminate this step of a human comparing your face, your passport and the name on your ticket at the gate – but who wants to visit a check-in desk if they don’t have to – thus the idea of using the app in advance.

      The design of LHR is not a shortcoming but intentional, to “allow” domestic passengers to go shopping, and to allow flexibility of departure gates (yes it could also be solved with buses). Note that at some UK airports (all except LHR, LGW and MAN) everyone transiting has to enter the UK anyway – and thus there is no biometric infrastructure.

      BA is just using the existing biometric infrastructure, although it will have to be added to more gates when this gets rolled out more widely.

      I am sure Helsinki airport, and most medium or bigger world airports, will be introducing this within the next 10 years.

      • riku says:

        19 Nov19 November 14:47

        >>BA wishes to eliminate this step of a human comparing your face, your passport and the name on your ticket at the gate
        This step is only needed if there is a risk of denied entry. Once you are in Schengen there is free movement. This is why there is no step of comparing face against passport and name on the ticket for internal Schengen flights at Helsinki airport (about 90% of flights).
        For flights to non Schengen countries this technology might have a role .. but there is border control when you leave the Schengen zone (unlike when you leave the UK). So you will have to show your passport there regardless of what the airline implements.

        • TGLoyalty says:

          19 Nov19 November 16:56

          Still missing point.

          They are only checking your passport to record you’ve left. This has nothing to do with checking your eligibility to get on the flight ie ticket matches name etc or to enter the country of your final destination.

        • riku says:

          19 Nov19 November 20:12

          >>eligibility .. ticket matches name etc or to enter the country of your final destination
          You are missing the point that when travelling inside the schengen zone or similar free movement areas then at check in ..
          a) there is no need to check if you can enter other schengen countries.
          b) not all airlines are like UK airlines and want to check that your ID matches the name on the ticket.
          At Helsinki the above probably make up about 98% of people checking in

        • TGLoyalty says:

          20 Nov20 November 10:10

          Make up your mind!

          We’re talking about when you must pass passport control which obviously isn’t an internal schengen flight!

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.