“As we educate the customers, the conversion rate increases. There was obviously a high need for it, we just didn’t have the technology and product that customers were looking for but now we have it,” Young told WIT at the Australian Tourism Exchange in Adelaide in early June.

The airline, which announced the launch of Check-Mate in April, said that the new process would eliminate “all paper boarding passes in favour of electronic boarding passes on mobile devices including mobile phones, BlackBerry Smartphones and iPhones”.

“New technology will enable Virgin Blue travellers to make flight bookings, changes and cancellations across the entire Virgin Blue domestic network from their personal devices while on the run and at their convenience.”

Phase one was launched via “mobile.virginblue.com.au” and a special BlackBerry Virgin Blue application. It offers mobile check-in, seat selection and boarding via 2D barcode scanning on personal handheld mobile devices for Virgin Blue passengers travelling on direct flights between Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.

Virgin Blue chief executive, Brett Godfrey, hailed it a first, saying Virgin Blue “was the first airline in the country to be offering a full suite of mobile options, in particular the ability for people to actually make a flight booking, check themselves in on their way to the airport and then go straight to boarding with their 2D barcode.”

Added Godfrey, “Not only does it eliminate paper boarding passes in favour of the more environmentally friendly electronic boarding pass, it heralds the beginning of a new and dynamic era for travellers who rightly demand more sophisticated and advanced means of going about their business and leisure travel.”

The application was developed as a joint project between Virgin Blue’s Internet Technology team and Dublin-based Mobile Travel Technologies. Future phases include a range of functions including Australasia wide airport 2D scanning of bar codes for boarding and enriched mobile functionality across the Virgin Blue Group.

Young told WIT that thus far, it was seeing high adoption among customers, particularly for check-in and boarding. “That seems to be the appeal of the service.”

He also added that Virgin Blue would be placing greater focus on the inbound corporate market, making it easier for travellers in markets such as Korea, Japan and China to book online so that they wouldn’t have to use the call centres.

“There is a lot of corporate travel from these markets and we will be creating an inbound corporate website where travellers can have their own booking profile, for instance. The question is, do we just have one website or do we have a Japanese or a Korean one? We are working through these issues.”

Already, he said, corporate travellers from Asia were availing themselves of the Airpass which enables them to travel to different points within Australia at competitive fares. Bookings can be done directly on www.virginblueairpass.com.

Young said the airline was also seeing demand from corporate travellers from Asia buying entry into its lounges. “They can use the lounge to hold business meetings at airports and we are seeing interest in this facility from China, Singapore and Korea.”

Young said that up to 84% of total bookings comes through the Virgin Blue website.

Meanwhile, V Australia, the full service airline of Virgin Blue, will add a fifth aircraft in November and another two will come online in 2012.

Earlier this year, V Australia expanded its Melbourne operations, adding new direct Melbourne to Los Angeles flights, as well as direct flights from Melbourne and Brisbane to Phuket, Thailand. In March, it launched twice weekly services between Melbourne and Johannesburg.

Featured image credit (Man hand holding tablet with mobile wallet and plane ticket): Ockra/iStock