An article in today's Guardian newspaper suggests that the days of airline boarding passes may be over in about 3 years. The International Civil Aviation Organization is working on plans for a major shake up in air travel with the introduction of a "digital travel incentive." The changes would mean the end of boarding passes and checking in for flights. Instead, when booking a flight, the information will be downloaded on our phones and updated if necessary. This will be then be linked to our passport details also on the phone. Together these will be called "journey passes".

Valérie Viale, the director of product management at Amadeus, the travel technology company, has said the changes are “the biggest in 50 years”.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/apr/11/boarding-passes-and-check-in-to-be-scrapped-in-air-travel-shake-up-plans

It means when we lose phone we lose passport too ?

44 minutes ago, vinapu said:

It means when we lose phone we lose passport too ?

probably not - as most likely it will be stored up in "the cloud" in an AWS (Amazon Web Services), Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, Alibaba, or Oracle server.

Then you can pay a hacker to retrieve your information - OR - the hacker via AI will already find you and ask you to pay a ransom to get your data back.....

45 minutes ago, vinapu said:

It means when we lose phone we lose passport too ?

you would probably still have a physical passport. If physical passports are abolished, i could see it more likely be replaced by a chip injected under your skin

In some countries you can already have a digital version of your id or your driving license and show it to the police on your phone, as long as the battery is not empty.

 

5 minutes ago, bkkmfj2648 said:

probably not - as most likely it will be stored up in "the cloud" in an AWS (Amazon Web Services), Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, Alibaba, or Oracle server.

Then you can pay a hacker to retrieve your information - OR - the hacker via AI will already find you and ask you to pay a ransom to get your data back.....

"You will buy our energy and store your passports in our cloud"

3 minutes ago, 10tazione said:

In some countries you can already have a digital version of your id or your driving license and show it to the police on your phone

Here in Thailand I have the DLT (Department of Land Transport) app which stores my 2 Thai driving licenses (motorbike and car).

The visa agent that I use here in Pattaya insisted that I get this app and she was right - because on one of my many trips to nearby Koh Larn island, I inadvertently lost my physical Thai motorbike driving license, and afterwards for some months (until the next renewal cycle), I was able to use the DLT app to display my driving license to the local police as having a valid driving license.

The app is free and can be safely downloaded and installed from either Google Play or the Apple App Store.

58 minutes ago, bkkmfj2648 said:

Here in Thailand I have the DLT (Department of Land Transport) app which stores my 2 Thai driving licenses (motorbike and car).

Funny how you create an image of someone from their writings. I had you as someone with much shorter hair!