Japanese Airline Rolls Out Wireless Chip Check-In

ThinkPad760 writes "Early in September All Nippon Airways (ANA) of Japan will complete their rollout of a ticketless check-in and boarding pass service called SKiP! You book the ticket online thru either a computer or your mobile phone. Prior to arriving at the airport, you 'place' the ticket onto your IC-chipped ANA Mileage card, or have the booking dowloaded into your IC-enabled phone. When you get to the airport you just wave your mobile or IC card at the reader. It confirms your booking, the light turns green, and off you go to the gate. At the gate it's the same thing. I've been using this service out of Haneda to Osaka for the past year. It is fantastic. Since I never have to check bags, I turn up to the airport just short while before my flight, walk straight through security and onto the plane."

walk straight through security?

[dfm3]

I don't know how it is in many other parts of the world, but on domestic flights in the US, usually the biggest bottleneck is not at the ticket counter (unless you're checking a bag) or at the gate, but at security. If you already carry on all of your luggage and print your boarding pass at home, would this technology really speed things up that much?

Re:Verify the phone only

[Anonymous Coward]

hey dipshit, the cellphone is just used in place of a ticket, it doesn't let you bypass security checks. RTFA

Re:That's nice, but

[markov_chain]

Then again, Japan does not have military bases in a bunch of Middle Eastern countries, or give billions in aid to a certain Mediterranean country...

They will WANT the control

[drDugan]

and the people will want the controls placed on them.

because it seemed easier

because it seemed faster

because it seemed safer

because I was afraid

because I thought I had to

because it was more expensive if I didn't let them do it

becuase it wasn't worth fighting any more for freedom

because if I refused, the terrorists would win

because everyone else was doing it

and in the end it won't matter how they get you to give up your humanity and your freedom, you will not be able to get it back once you are chipped, tracked, and recorded. Other people will "manage" your finances, your access rights, and your permissions -- all electronically and under one central system. It will make 1984 look appealing: at least they could hide from the telescreen in some corners of their world. The idea of dissent will fade from the collective understanding.

If you have not seen it yet, the Zeitgeist movie http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/ [zeitgeistmovie.com] covers this pretty well. Like sheep herded in the yard, dumb people who just can't seem to stop the TV long enough to figure out that centralized control of their life makes them no longer free.

Airport security

[STDK]

I travel in Europe, Asia and the US. And trust me, even "the rest of the world" is wasting huge amount of money on useless security features. My home carrier (SAS) write on there homepage under security "...in order for you to feel safe ..." basically admitting most of it is useless.

Let us take the two most annoying rules:

The Liquid rule:
The 100ml of water rule is an EU rule to prevent us from smuggling large amount of liquid (uh uh) on-board. Can't have all that water. Anyhow, lets say we - evil terrorist group - want to bring 2 liters of, I donno, liquid nitroglycerin onboard. I buy 19 tickets from Helsinki to Munich and 1 from Helsinki to New York. Inside the "safe" zone I bring out my legal 2 liter empty coke bottle and collect the stuff from the other 19 people.

The Drop-Belt-Shoes-Jacket-screening:
IF I am committed to blowing up a plane, which will eventually most likely course my own death, I might be able to accept swallowing 40x5g C4 in condoms. Puke them up once in the plane or time it with the natural urge. And if I dislike puking, let me just stick a few sticks of dynamite up my ass and use my MP3 player to blow the fucking thing up.

Really, how hard can it be. We get NOTHING - except higher air fares - for the 2h wasted in airports all over the world

STDK

"Ticketless"?

[Hamster Lover]

Are there any airlines that still issue actual, physical tickets? I haven't touched one of those multi-coupon, red inked tickets since at least 2001 and I fly eight to ten times a year. I should mention that I am in Canada and haven't flown internationally in about five years, but I have friends flying to Japan and Bali and they weren't issued physical tickets either. Everything appears to be either web or electronic kiosk based check-in these days.