ETW STAFF – Mumbai
France’s Toulouse-Blagnac Airport is the world’s first airport to trial SIM-based Near Field Communication (NFC) to allow passengers to pass through the airport’s checks, controls and gates using only their mobile phones. Using the security of the SIM card, the airport will enable 50 selected passengers to trial this new service on BlackBerry smartphones over the summer. The trial is a joint effort between SITA, the air transport IT and communications specialist, Toulouse-Blagnac Airport, Orange, and BlackBerry.
The test passengers’ mobiles are the latest BlackBerry smartphones with NFC technology that allows communication with other NFC-enabled devices using radio frequencies by either tapping or bringing them within a range of a few centimeters. The phone will effectively become the passengers’ pass allowing them access to car parking, the boarding area via a premium access zone and to a premium passenger lounge. At the same time, passengers will receive up to the minute information such as changes to their flight times, departure hall or boarding gate.
