More travellers pick self-service flight options

Increasing numbers of air passengers are turning to self-service options when it comes to procedures such as flight check-in, a new survey has revealed.

More than a fifth of travellers flying with the airlines polled by aviation IT organisation SITA in its 2007 Airline IT Trends survey now use the internet to check-in, it was found. In addition, carriers said they expect this to rise to 35 per cent by the end of 2008.

The use of self-service kiosks at airports was also discovered to be on the increase, with 37 per cent of travellers set to use these facilities by the end of 2007, rising to 49 per cent next year.

"Airlines are increasingly using web check-in because they want to make travel easier for their passengers," commented Paul Coby, chairman of SITA.

"What could be simpler than going online and checking yourself in?"

Meanwhile, 86 per cent of all tickets are expected to be electronic by the end of next year, while 88 per cent of airlines are looking to start using bar-coded boarding passes instead of their magnetic stripe counterparts within the same period.

SITA's members include British Airways, Virgin Atlantic and bmi.

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