Collaboration with IBM to develop airport self service check-in kiosks
AIT Advanced Information Technologies
AIV
Shares issued 6,015,500
1998-10-09 close $0.25
Tuesday Oct 13 1998
Mr. Peter Sakkal reports
IBM Canada and AIT Advanced Information Technologies have collaborated to develop self-service
check-in kiosks for a major international airline. These kiosks will incorporate AIT's newest
multifunction data capture device, the PAX reader.
IBM's customer check-in kiosk offers airline passengers the ability to bypass the check-in desk and
obtain a boarding pass, quickly and easily. The target market is primarily the traveler that does not have
luggage to check, and who can use the kiosk and proceed directly to the departure gate. The kiosk is
especially useful for passengers who have selected electronic ticketing, and do not yet have a boarding
pass or ticket receipt. Passengers may also verify frequent flyer information, request an earlier flight, or
upgrade and select a seat assignment from a user friendly seat map.
IBM's Travel and Transportation Industry Solutions Unit provides a broad range of products, services
and integrated solutions to all segments of the worldwide travel and transportation industry, including
airlines, airports and global distribution systems. Specialist teams develop, market and support industry
specific solutions covering all aspects of airline and airport operations, from customer service to
maintenance and from marketing to revenue management.
The PAX incorporates high resolution OCR scanning for machine readable travel documents including
passports, visas, ID cards and ATB coupons. In addition, the PAX reads magnetic encoded data,
including three and four track magnetic strips found on documents such as ATB coupons, boarding
passes and credit cards. Scanned data is easily transmitted into any computer system for verification and
storage, providing a secure, flexible and highly accurate solution for automatic document inspection and
passenger data entry.
The PAX reader's solid state design and patented data acquisition architecture combine to optimize ease
of use with operation independent of operator swiping style, speed and direction. Its superior reliability
and versatility, user friendliness, and highly compact and robust design make the PAX the natural choice
for automated passenger check-in applications.
Earlier this year, British Airways purchased over 300 PAX readers for use at passenger processing
operations throughout North American airports. The PAX reader is used to automate the passenger
check-in process and authenticate airline tickets through the use of innovative optical character
recognition and data capture technology.
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