<H1>AA Testing Smart Cards</H1>By Jay Campbell<H3>Ticketless Travel Seen As First Step Toward Acceptance</H3>New York - American Airlines is alpha testing 1K smart cards for aircraft boarding with 1,000 AAdvantage members at the Albuquerque, N.M., airport.
The test, which will continue for several months, uses the same electronic gate readers designed to facilitate the airline's ticketless travel program, which will be available in September.
Senior vice president of marketing Mike Gunn called the ticketless travel program the first step in the smart card process, noting that smart cards will have "mass application in two years."
The test confirms a recent prediction by a technology manager at Siemens that other airlines would begin testing smart cards within the next year (BTN, June 24), although American said Siemens is not its supplier.
BTN learned of the pilot at a press conference for AA's new AAccess Interactive Travel Network, which includes non-smart card automated boarding, ticketless travel and online booking for both individuals and corporations. Other future technology initiatives for American will include a test of curbside and terminal checkin using wireless technology and the development of software that shows AAdvantage members how to maximize mileage accrual on a given trip. The airline is planning a fall rollout of in-flight laptop power sources in first and business class.
When used in conjunction with AAccess Boarding, the new ticketless travel program will allow passengers to bypass ticketing stations at the airport by inserting a credit card or AAdvantage card into an electronic reader, which prints out a seat assignment. AA president Donald Carty equated the new boarding process with the smart card boarding system offered by the Delta Shuttle.
The airline will install the readers at its top 21 airports, which process 80 percent of the airline's passengers and include Boston, Chicago-O'Hare, San Francisco, Denver, New York-Kennedy, New York-LaGuardia, Nashville, Dallas/Fort Worth, San Diego, Miami, Los Angeles and Washington-National. Receipts for ticketless purchases can be mailed or faxed to travelers. Passengers seeking upgrades, seat selection or reservations at the airport will have to stop at a counter, but the airline eventually will provide those services through airport kiosks.
"To keep a paper document just to feel comfortable is ludicrous," Gunn said, supporting a two-year industry trend toward electronic ticketing. While United Airlines has said its per-ticket production costs have dropped from $8 to $1 for electronic tickets, Gunn said he's not sure American will realize that much savings. "I think even United will admit that we were more efficient in the first place than they, so our savings may be smaller," he said. "There will be some processing savings, but we didn't quantify them."
As part of the AAccess system, American also rolled out AAccess VoiceView, which allows simultaneous data and voice communication with a reservations agent. The product uses the same software as the product introduced by Delta earlier this year.
The new AAccess services include several online booking options. The service makes American the largest airline in the world allowing ticket purchase on the Internet. American also is offering disk-based booking along the lines of United Connection and USAir's Priority Travel Works. One version, called Personal AAccess, is available to AAdvantage members for a nominal shipping fee. For corporations, American has chosen to market Sabre's Business Travel Solutions under the name Corporate AAccess-Powered by Sabre (See story, Page 1).