Maddening airport check-in delays triggered by security concerns could soon hit online travel reservations as analysts predict a crackdown on Internet air bookings.
Changes are already under way and travellers may eventually need to provide fingerprints before buying tickets online, they predict.
"I think we are going to be seeing more ID required generally than your simple password for a whole lot of transactions," said Graham Titterington, analyst for UK-based consultancy Ovum.
The Internet has revolutionised the airline business, helping low-fare carriers cut costs and turning travellers into do-it-yourself travel agents. Online booking revenue is forecast to rise to over 11 percent of the total in Europe by 2008 from just over four percent last year, according to technology consultancy Jupiter Research.
Anything that would complicate booking could hurt trade, however.
"If you start tampering with that, there's a whole section of air travel that's going to fall by the wayside," William Gaillard, spokesman for Geneva-based airline trade association IATA, told Reuters.
Ryanair and easyJet, Europe's two largest no-frills carriers, take nearly all their bookings online.
"Airlines are already in financial dire straits so to further regulate the payment system would be completely overtaxing," said analyst Bruce Cundiff at the US-based Jupiter Research. "Ninety-nine percent of the people buying tickets online are not doing anything illicit."
Changes have already begun, with passport numbers required for many international flights plus bookings that ask for ID numbers from credit cards and a log-in password for good measure.
Yet such moves did not prevent recent disruptions to British Airways and Air France flights to the United States, where suspect names on passenger lists were blamed for flight cancellations.
The incidents underscored the risk of name mix-ups from stepped-up security checks.
A Washington Post report on Monday said the US government plans to use such data to assign a security ranking to each foreign visitor entering the United States.
Counter-terror organisations are anxious to scan reservation lists days before flights take off to check for suspect names despite heated opposition from privacy advocates.
Some analysts expect a fingerprint sample will be required from all air travellers at some point between taking their credit card out of their wallet and boarding a flight.
Suppliers of the equipment that will be needed are optimistic, though analysts note few PCs in the market are enabled for such biometric security operations and the fact governments have only just begun to compile name databases.
"The ante obviously has been raised," said Derek McDermott, managing director of UK-based ISL Biometrics. "We're seeing a big surge in interest".
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