Airlines will lead the charge in bringing near field communications into airports, according to a new survey from airline IT company Sita. As reported by NFC World’s Sarah Clark, 80% of major airlines surveyed said they would support NFC, typically for wireless boarding passes, by 2014. A much lower percentage of airports, 27%, said they would support NFC directly themselves.
NFC is widely expected to be implemented throughout various applications, it’s just a question of when. NFC boarding passes and check-ins are probably the most obvious airport use, but other possibilities include smart routing of passengers through security lines and payments at airport shops. Personally, I’m hoping to be able to use NFC or some other means at an airport to instantly download a package of high-quality offline reading to my Instapaper app as I board the plane. There’s a lot more that’s possible than just check-ins.
