Comments on: Lufthansa’s Subway-Style Boarding

By: Nick B

Nick B — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 03:31:22 +0000

Granted I’ve not seen it in person, but it seems similar to Delta’s gate set up at most airports in the US. A screen to tell you if you have cleared from standby/gotten an upgrade and a large boarding pass reader by the gate. The only difference I can see is that Lufthansa lets the machines handle the boarding pass collection/scanning instead of having an agent do it.

By: Marc

Marc — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 17:20:18 +0000

My wife and I used this system in Munich about a year ago on a flight to Rome. It was great! No hassle at all.

By: Chris

Chris — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 18:59:58 +0000

Actually, ANA also has had a similar system in place for several years. As far back as 2002, I flew from KIX to HND and at the gate, I simply inserted my boarding pass into a turnstile (no ID checks at all, not even at security!).

Now it appears they’ve even streamlined the process of picking up the boarding pass: http://www.ana.co.jp/eng/dms/svc/next_step/skip_index.html

By: Bryan in San Francisco

Bryan in San Francisco — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 18:20:26 +0000

I think this represents the European reliance on reason. For example, in Germany you can drink beer on the subway or board the tram without showing a ticket (honor system). As long as you do everything within reason. In America we are obsessed with torts, security, and are nannied around to avoid lawsuits. Even at night clubs in San Francisco, I get shoved along by guards who say, “You can’t stand on the stairs; you have to check your coat, etc. etc.” In Germany or Holland no one would care.

By: Mike Nash

Mike Nash — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 18:04:17 +0000

I just used the system last week in Munich – my boarding pass had a cryptic bar code that I scanned at the machine and it gave me the green light and I walked though keeping the same boarding pass. Worked without a problem.

By: Christoph

Christoph — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 17:21:10 +0000

The system works with a PDF417 2D barcode (at least looks very similar to it). You can look at up at Wikipedia. The main problem of the system is that Lufthansa forgot to add encryption to these fancy 2D code. So it is not very hard for someone with the knowledge to read the content of the LH boardingpass 2D and to tamper with it. Theoretically you can now create a fake boardingpass. Not to get a free flight but to check in luggage under a different name.

The idea is to prepare a boardingpass for a specific flight at home with the name of a person who is on this specific flight. Then to go to airport to drop off a piece of luggage using this boardingpass. The luggage will now get a luggage tag and will be linked to this other person. Now you just go home and wait that whatever you put in the luggage will be detected during a security screen and the other person gets in trouble.

I know it is probably not as as easy as explained but LH really should encrypt the data on the boardingpass. It doesn’t take a lot of space to add encryption to a 2D barcode but adds real security.

By: CF

CF — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 17:18:40 +0000

sntheorist – You can’t print them out for US flights, but according to the website:

You can already check in online and then print out your own boarding pass on approximately 370 routes, amongst them the first long-haul routes, operated by Lufthansa, Austrian Airlines, British Midland, Croatia Airlines and LOT. During 2008 the online boarding pass will be available on more European routes and many long-haul routes.

Oliver – Thanks for pointing out they’ve been there for two years. That makes it even more embarrassing I didn’t know about it.

By: Oliver

Oliver — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 17:13:58 +0000

Hmm. Not exactly new (as the blog you’re linking to seems to imply) — I have seen those in FRA for probably two years.

By the way, in many German subway systems you buy a ticket and then just walk to the platform and board the train without having to deal with turnstiles and feeding coins/tokens/tickets into something.

By: sntheorist

sntheorist — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 16:46:59 +0000

As far as I understand, Lufthansa does not allow you to print your boarding pass at home. You can check in at home (and now even select/change seats, which was not possible until recently), but still have to print it at a self-check-in terminal at the airport. The boarding passes you get from this thing have the required magnetic stripe. Of course, the whole system could be upgraded to barcode. This way, people could print their boarding passes at home.

By: Million Miler

Million Miler — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 16:21:08 +0000

American pioneered this technology years ago. The little stainless steel stands you still see at each AA gate were originally equipped with card readers. Assuming you had a “paperless ticket”, and you did not have bags to check, you could bypass the ticket counter entirely, walk up to the gate, insert your premium level frequent flyer card (with magnetic stripe)and verify your name and seat assignment on the display panel. An internal cash register type printer would print a receipt with your seat number. The agent was supposed to verify your ID, but rarely did (Not so much for security back then as much as this was the only check in otherwise all electronic billing process)

After 9/11 this became mostly a moot point as you needed a boarding pass just to get in the gate area.

I think the current version of the device still has the card reader, just in case we ever get to widespread adoption of some kind of card based system that eliminates the requirement of paper boarding passes to get through security.