Airline boarding passes 'will vanish within five years and be replaced by fingerprint, face and eye scans'
Airline tickets will be phased out within the next five years and replaced by biometric scans such as fingerprints and facial or iris recognition, an airline boss has predicted.
Riyadh Air chief executive Tony Douglas also believes even phone-based boarding passes will disappear by 2030 with apps becoming the sole method for booking.
While physical tickets and boarding passes have been gradually phased out in the past two decades in favour of digital options, paper documents are still available.
But Saudi Arabian startup Riyadh Air, which will begin flying this summer, is set to become the world's first airline to bring in a digital-only approach to booking.
The airline, owned by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, recently unveiled plans to launch its own custom-made system specifically designed for smartphones.
Mr Douglas, whose airline is ordering up to 200 jets, told the Telegraph: 'What we've designed is something that's got more in common with Uber and Amazon.
Tony Douglas (pictured), chief executive officer of Riyadh Air, believes airline tickets will be phased out within the next five years and replaced by biometric scans such as fingerprints
'We're not starting with a legacy system and therefore we don't need to switch. Existing airlines are trying to bridge a gap and it's going to take three to five years for most of them.'
ANALYSIS: Switch to digital is fine as long as more is spent on tech infrastructure
By PAUL CHARLES
Paperwork is almost dead in aviation.
Whether it be pilots using iPads in the cockpit, or passengers checking-in via their App, we are seeing the end of paper and the widespread usage of digital assets.
If anything, airlines and airports have been quite slow compared with banks and retailers to introduce more app usage for when we travel.
Airlines know that they can increase customer loyalty via app, such as giving better fare discounts to their most frequent fliers, or increase revenues by making you choose a particular seat at time of booking, for a fee quickly taken via app payment.
Of course, there will always be some passengers who don't want to use an app and are more reassured with printing out their boarding pass – but it's now a tiny percentage of those travelling.
It's up to airlines and airports to provide more charging facilities on the plane and at the airport as the downside is that phones run out of charge - and many travellers don't have the ability to recharge their phone so easily.
We will also see the end of paper passports within ten years – as airports introduce eye and facial technology to check you are who you say you are.
This also speeds up processing of passengers as our airports get busier.
So the switch to digital is fine as long as more resources are spent on providing the tech infrastructure.
PAUL CHARLES is chief executive of travel consultancy The PC Agency
He claimed the new system would help customers more easily make reservation changes and compared it to how banking apps, online shopping and home delivery have all evolved in the past five years.
Mr Douglas added: 'If you return an item, you get your money back. Yet if you book a trip involving a number of partner airlines and try to get a refund on one of the flights it takes 10,000 years because it was never designed with that in mind.'
The system being designed with San Francisco-based technology firm Flyr will include a shopping basket function allowing multiple bookings from relatives or colleagues, even when travelling from different cities - and the ability to split or combine payments.
It comes after Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary revealed in October 2024 that he wanted to eliminate paper-based boarding passes for the airline's passengers by May 2025.
The move, which would make Ryanair the world's first airline to go fully paperless, could mean those without a smartphone will be unable to board one of its flights.
Mr O'Leary said at the time: 'We are working towards, from May 1, that everything will be done on the app, nothing will be done on paper any more.'
Travel expert Paul Charles told MailOnline today that paperwork is 'almost dead in aviation', although airlines and airports have been 'quite slow compared with banks and retailers to introduce more app usage for when we travel'.
Mr Charles, chief executive of travel consultancy The PC Agency, said: 'Airlines know that they can increase customer loyalty via apps, such as giving better fare discounts to their most frequent fliers, or increase revenues by making you choose a particular seat at time of booking, for a fee quickly taken via app payment.
'Of course, there will always be some passengers who don't want to use an app and are more reassured with printing out their boarding pass – but it's now a tiny percentage of those travelling.
'It's up to airlines and airports to provide more charging facilities on the plane and at the airport as the downside is that phones run out of charge – and many travellers don't have the ability to recharge their phone so easily.'
He added that he believed paper passports will also end within ten years as airports introduce eye and facial technology, which 'speeds up processing of passengers as our airports get busier'.
Mr Charles concluded: 'The switch to digital is fine as long as more resources are spent on providing the tech infrastructure.'
While physical tickets and boarding passes have been gradually phased out in the past two decades in favour of digital options, paper documents are still available (stock photograph)
But Age UK charity director Caroline Abrahams told MailOnline: 'Any move to make tickets virtual is likely to be met with equanimity by those who are savvy smart phone users, but with dismay by the millions of people, most of them older, who aren't online at all.
'At best it would make it much harder for them to purchase a ticket and at worst it could make it virtually impossible.
'Technological innovation is a wonderful thing and potentially offers cost savings to organisations at a time when money is tight - but it's incumbent on everyone to remember that digital exclusion is still a major problem in our society.
'If organisations want to accelerate a shift to digital then they must also take responsibility for ensuring that those who aren't computer users now and never will be, have good alternative options and aren't simply airbrushed out.'
Riyadh Air is planning to unveil a route map in the coming months ahead of its launch, having confirmed an order for 60 Airbus A321neo-family aircraft in October 2024.
Ryanair chief executive Michael O'Leary (pictured) revealed in October 2024 that he wanted to eliminate paper-based boarding passes for the airline's passengers by May 2025
The airline also ordered 39 Boeing 787 wide-body jets in 2023 with options for another 33 as part of a wider deal also involving national carrier Saudia.
It is also weighing up the industry's largest twin-aisle jets, Boeing 777X and the Airbus A350-1000, and expects to make a decision on this within the coming months.
The creation of Riyadh Air by the Saudi sovereign wealth fund is part of a broader Saudi strategy to diversify its oil-based economy and boost tourism amid its hopes to become a global aviation hub and attract 100million annual visitors by 2030.
Last year, Riyadh Air and Delta Air Lines announced they had entered into a partnership with the goal of operating flights between the US and Saudi Arabia.
