Airline gets first NFC boarding

Air France is testing out what it claims is the first deployment of NFC-enabled mobile boarding passes.

As part of a pilot that will run until the end of October this year, frequent flyers travelling from Nice to Paris with the airline will be able to pick up their boarding pass by swiping an NFC-enabled phone over a reader at the airport.

The Pass and Fly system will identify the traveller through the information held on their NFC-enabled device and then upload the boarding pass to their phone. It will also tally the frequent flyer points the passenger has collected from the trip.

Passengers will need to swipe their device over NFC readers once again when going through security at the airport and just before boarding.

The system is a joint project between Nice Côte d’Azur Airport and Air France, and uses technology from travel IT company Amadeus and transport tech vendor IER.

Air France recently expanded its more traditional mobile check-in system. The service, whereby a boarding pass containing a QR code is sent by SMS, MMS or email to travellers' phones, can now be used for almost all short and medium-length flights run by the airline.