Boarding passes being ripped, folded, bent, and even lost can cause major headaches when passengers are in a rush to board their planes. Much time is wasted during the boarding process as a result.
Alaska Airlines has attempted to solve this problem by combining the ease of biometrics in speeding up the process by the use of fingerprint scanners instead of pieces of paper, saving both time and money.
The airlines is currently testing a machine that scans fingerprints of passengers as they go through the boarding process. Instead of displaying a paper ticket and ID, the kiosk uses biometrics to authenticate a person based on their physical characteristics, Yahoo Travel reported.
According to Fox News, a report given by Sophia Mattson of MercuryNews.com, Alaska Airlines is testing a machine at the Mineta San Jose International Airport that will scan the eyes and fingerprints of customers when checking their bags, passing through security and even boarding the plane.
200 Alaska Airlines frequent flyers have been chosen to test the program. The airline has partnered with CLEAR, a security firm that expedites the security process. For passengers who will use the scan system, they will pay an annual fee of $179.
Jerry Tolzman, the manager of customer research and development with Alaska Airlines said, "Our big picture dream is that any time you have to prove who you are during any of the steps of air travel you could simply use your fingerprint instead."
He added, "Using biometrics as identification has a huge potential to simplify the travel experience and eliminate hassles, while adding to the security of air travel," Daily Mail has learned.
But not all are convinced in this high-tech system as some experts warned that is is possible for people to trick the scanners by placing a replica of another person's fingerprint on top of their own.
A security research Jan Krissler, who is employed by Telekom Innovation Laboratories and who has a history in the biometrics, last year proved that duping the system is possible.
It was in December when Krissler revealed a "clone" of the thumb print of German defense minister Ursula von der Leyer which he had created using pictures of the politicians hand with a commercial fingerprint software for Verifinger, Daily Mail reported.
But John Huggins, the Executive Director of UC Berkeley's Sensor and Activator Center said that while the finger print scanners could be fooled, the fingerprint ultrasound scanning would penetrate skin and detect pores and blood vessels making it hard to manipulate.
This new invention might aim to help their passengers but this will be just an option for interested customers.
