Lufthansa is working with IT supplier Amadeus to test out the use of a mobile phone-based ID that will fast-track air travellers onto aircraft.
A product of the European Union (EU) legislation to provide a digital ID, a pilot project is testing its application to air travel.
The German airline and Amadeus are enabling holders of European Digital Identity Wallet (EUID) to tap through the various stages of boarding a flight, which normally require human interaction or documents to be produced.
At the end of 2023, EU bodies reached an agreement on the EUID. The personal digital wallets are in the form of apps that citizens can use to identify themselves digitally, and store and manage their identity data and official documents. These include passports, national ID cards, driver’s licences and payment methods.
By the end of next year, there will be an EU mandate that all nations have to ensure citizens can use digital documents, although it will not be mandatory for citizens to use them.
The principle has been applied to different sectors, and Lufthansa and Amadeus are testing what will “become the norm for identifying yourself in the future”, according to Patrick Sgueglia of Lufthansa’s airport standard and customer innovation department.
“This is going to be as normal as tapping your card to pay or doing a quick selfie,” he told Computer Weekly.
EU Digital Wallet Consortium
Lufthansa became involved in the EU Digital Wallet Consortium (EWC) about two years ago.
The consortium’s mandate was to trial digital IDs in different scenarios. “We saw the need to become more aware of these activities and then started to participate in test runs and trials, to prepare for when these documents arrive and allow our customers to use them,” added Sgueglia.
There are use cases in other sectors, which include business registries, and there are many payment providers in the consortium. Lufthansa and Amadeus are currently working on two use cases. “Logically, we partnered with Amadeus, our long-term global airport IT partner,” he said.
The first use case involves using the EUID data in a check-in scenario. Instead of having to swipe a passport or have it manually verified, the data is taken directly from the digital credentials. “This removes hard stops where you traditionally have to, for example, see an agent,” said Sgueglia. “Using the digital wallet, we can skip all that.”
He stressed that the data is verified and “clean”, which is “actually even more secure because sometimes the swipe machines can create errors which can also occur when you take a picture of a passport”.
The second use case being piloted by Lufthansa and Amadeus is using the EUID for biometric ID.
Passengers will be able to pass through various “touch points”, such as the self-service kiosk for verification, bag drop, security and boarding device. “A passenger will be able to clear all these touch points biometrically,” said Sgueglia, adding that this was tested in an Amadeus lab in Nice, France.
Lufthansa isn’t just working with Amadeus on the pilots, but its customers, too. On the check-in pilot, the airline is working with a cohort of its frequent flyers.
“We call these our co-creators, who we routinely push new products to so they can try them out, like on-board food,” said Sgueglia. “We also decided to push the check-in test use to them, so we had about 160 volunteers.”
These were live customers using test data and test systems. In total, 153 completed the process successfully.
Understanding the customer experience
Lufthansa surveys the co-creators in real-time to help it understand the customer experience.
Sgueglia said there is a lot of activity globally around the use of digital tokens for travel. “My personal expectation is, by the early 2030s, the majority of our passengers will be utilising these digital tokens and digital documents,” he said.
Rudy Daniello, executive vice-president of AirOps at Amadeus, said digital identity is the missing piece of the jigsaw for seamless travel. “With facial recognition technology being installed at airports, the border, cruise terminals and even hotels, it won’t be long before travellers can breeze through every step in their journey without the need to present a passport or other documents,” he said.
Daniello added that the fact the EU is behind the digital wallet increases trust, which is beneficial for wider adoption among citizens.
“We welcome the EU initiative to create a digital identity wallet,” he said. “Because it is designed by the EU, with the proper respect and data security and privacy at the heart, it is very reassuring in terms of adoption.
“The EU gives it the legitimacy, the credibility and it goes beyond travel, so citizens will be used to it,” added Daniello.
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