Air New Zealand adds passport scan to app

Aims to reduce typing errors when travel details are input by hand

Air New Zealand passengers can now use the airline’s mobile app to scan and save passport information.

Currently around 10 percent of Air New Zealand passengers type their passport details incorrectly as they check in online. By saving the passport details in Air New Zealand’s app, those errors will be reduced. Check-in should be smoother as the travel document details will be entered correctly.

The app also sends a timely reminder when it’s time to renew the passport and provides handy click-through links to renew New Zealand, Australian, British and American passports.

The enhanced app also has a new multiple boarding pass function. Passengers travelling as a family or group can download up to nine boarding passes for their group to their app – meaning the end of paper boarding passes for passengers who do not have their own device, such as young children.

Air New Zealand is planning to introduce more digital features, including adding secure credit card scanning to its booking system, as well as longer term developments such as selfie-boarding – using biometrics and facial recognition to verify passengers at the gate.

The Air New Zealand mobile app has been downloaded by 1.3 million people.

About Air New Zealand

Air New Zealand is the national airline of New Zealand and is based in Auckland.

Routes: Air New Zealand operates to 22 domestic and 29 international destinations in 16 countries around the Pacific rim (within New Zealand, Australia, the South West Pacific, Asia, North America) and the United Kingdom.

Fleet: On 01 April 2017, Air New Zealand operated a fleet of 103 aircraft in total, with 31 more on order. The average age of the fleet is just over 7 years.

The fleet is a mixture of Airbus, Boeing, Aerospatiale and Bombardier.

  • 30 Airbus A320
  • 15 Boeing 777
  • 9 Boeing 787-9 (4 more on order)
  • Airbus A320/A321 NEO (13 on order)
  • 26 Aerospatiale ATR 72 (14 more on order)
  • 23 Bombardier Q300

The Boeings operate the long haul routes, the others are for domestic and short haul.

Numbers: About 14 million passengers a year.

Alliance: StarAlliance

Image credit: Air New Zealand

Internet links

Air New Zealand (NZ)