SAS Has the Future Passenger Experience in Hand

The carrier’s SAS Lab has been tasked with using the latest technology to innovate business and improve the passenger experience.

When it comes to using technology to streamline the passenger experience, it seems that Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) has things in hand – literally. In an interview with Skift, Rickard Gustafson, the carrier’s CEO, has revealed that a member of staff has had a chip bearing biometric boarding pass details implanted into their palm. Innovations like these, Gustafson explained, are part of the airline’s SAS Lab, a hub that the outlet describes as a “center charged with creating solutions that might be useful to travelers in three to five years.”

Speaking of this specific SAS Lab innovation, Gustafson said, “You can board by reaching out your hand, and you can enter into our lounge by reaching out your hand.”

“I don’t think that a lot of customers will let us implement a chip in their hands, but we’re playing around with technology,” he added.

Indeed, the whole point of SAS Lab, Gustafson explained, is to “spark innovation in our business.” “We need to find ways to use new technology in a new, innovative way. So we said, ‘Let’s put a few people and give them a task to play around with technology and come up with wild ideas about how we can use technology in a smarter way to simplify the travel chain,’” he elaborated.

In addition to experimenting with biometric chips, SAS Lab is exploring the possibility of using Bluetooth bag tags. “When you check in on our app, the tag is populated with information. There’s kind of a liquid screen on a bag tag. It’s reusable, so when you check-in, you already have populated your tags,” Gustafson explained.

“When you get through the airport, you go to the self-service bag drop, you scan it and you put it on the belt. Then when you go back home again and you check in on the app, you have an automatically repopulated bag tag, and you’re all set to go,” he added.

While Gustafson admitted that not all of SAS Lab’s ideas are viable, the hub has created “another way of thinking” about and improving upon the passenger experience.

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