By Maggie Hui, posted Feb 6, 2012 at 3:22 PM, 1,456 views,

Hong Kong Airport Now Supports Smartphone for Boarding Pass (Video)

Nine airlines, including Cathay Pacific, United Airlines, British Airways, Delta and Air France are now offering mobile boarding passes at Hong Kong International Airport. Passengers are allowed to check in with their smartphone devices instead of a printed boarding pass. US-based Continental Airlines has introduced the same service in 2007 and the system became mainstream at US airports in 2010. Finally, dashing to the check-in desk and queuing up will be a thing of the past …

The new system will allows flight passenger to choose their boarding passes with QR code sent to their smartphones by SMS or e-mail when they check in online. While arriving the airport, passengers without checked baggage and will be traveling on a direct flight to their ultimate destination will not have to visit the check-in counter. They can simply present the QR code to the security for scanning. If the scanners are unable to recognize the code, passengers doesn’t need to return to the ticketing desk, the person at immigration or the security post would just call the airline to check the details of the boarding pass and name. Passengers should also beware if their phone is finicky or running low on battery power.

The new system will be no different from normal boarding passes but can use less paper and bringing more convenient for the business travelers. It cost HK$1.6 million (US$206,000) to install the scanners in 53 locations throughout the airport, including security checkpoints, immigration and boarding gates. More airlines will be offering this service in the next six months. We will be looking forward to other airport in China to provide the same mobile boarding system.

SOURCE: SCMP (need subscription), TVB News, Oriental Daily