Developed by Glasgow-based Real Time, FirstPass™ was successfully trialled and rolled out in the UK by British carrier bmi.

FirstPass™ uses mobile technology to encode a passenger’s details within an industry standard 2D barcode. The boarding pass can be read directly from the mobile handset by the existing scanners recently installed at airports for the paper-based “print at home” boarding cards.

Austrian Airlines serves 130 destinations in 66 countries and will initially introduce FirstPass™ on Austrian domestic routes, routes between Germany and Austria, routes between Belgium and Austria and on all flights from Vienna.  Austrian ultimately intends to provide the service on all routes.

The solution removes the need for passengers to carry any type of paper-based boarding pass, and means that passengers checking in at home, in hotels, or at conference centres no longer need to find a printer to produce their boarding pass.

Alaistair Deacon, Real Time’s Technical Director, said: “Put simply, a passenger using FirstPass™ no longer needs to queue to check in, use a kiosk or even find a printer to print an online paper boarding pass.

“One mobile boarding pass will give a passenger everything he/she needs to board an aircraft via security with additional information displayed as text for inspection once on board.

“FirstPass™ also provides additional benefits such as sending passengers immediate flight updates to their mobiles or, for low cost carriers, delivery as a premium service to increase passenger revenues.”

FirstPass™ uses WAP Push and ‘Picture Messaging’ (MMS) technology to deliver a boarding pass directly to the passenger’s mobile phone.  Real Time’s technology then ensures that the boarding pass and 2D barcode are sized correctly for every mobile phone handset, PDA or Blackberry on the market, meaning that the tickets can be easily scanned and read.

Real Time has been working with the global airline standards body, IATA, over the last two years to develop the standard which will be used by all airlines. The FirstPass™ platform was integrated into Austrian Airlines back office by Lufthansa Systems.

David Reszner, Austrian Airlines’ Ground Product Development Manager added: “We are delighted to be one of the first European airlines to introduce mobile phone boarding passes.

“We were looking for a mobile solution that would not only improve the service we offer our customers but, over time, would also reduce our costs. Real Time’s FirstPass™ solution has met all our requirements and we are excited at the prospect of rolling out this groundbreaking technology across our whole network.”

Real Time, a Group company and the UK’s leading aviation and IT solutions consultancy, is widely recognised for its pioneering solutions to remove bottlenecks within airports.

The company’s successful boarding card scanning solution, RT-Scan™, is already in operation across a number of UK and European airports and its RT-Queue™ Solution is used to produce real time queuing statistics by tracking passenger’s Bluetooth signals throughout the terminal.

Austrian Airlines Group consists of Austrian Airlines, the national flag carrier, Austrian Arrows, the regional carrier, and Lauda Air, the specialist for leisure travel, and covers four continents. Last year the group carried more than 10.7 million passengers. Aircraft of various types and sizes from Boeing 777 to Fokker 70 allow optimal operations on different routes.  The airline is a member of Star Alliance, a global alliance of 20 airlines.