The chief executive of start-up Riyadh Air, which will take flight this summer, says that boarding passes – both paper and digital – will likely disappear withing five years, to be replaced by biometric scans for passengers.

Tony Douglas, whose Saudi Arabian-based airline will operate based on a digital-only approach, told Britain’s Telegraph newspaper he believes fingerprints, facial or iris recognition, will be used as the sole method of identifying and processing passengers by 2030.

In the interim, current methods, such as phone-based and paper tickets will be phased out as legacy airlines continue to “bridge the gap” to an all-digital world.

Douglas says Riyadh air will use a custom-made system designed specifically for smartphones, telling the Telegraph, “What we’ve designed is something that’s got more in common with Uber and Amazon. We’re not starting with a legacy system and therefore we don’t need to switch.”

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