IBM announced this week that it has helped Jetstar Airways expand its self-service offering for passengers to include SMS boarding.

According to a press release, the technology allows passengers to quickly board their flights, using any kind of mobile phone at self-service kiosks in more than 20 airports across Australia and New Zealand.

With the new SMS technology, travelers can quickly confirm their identity at kiosks, choose their seats, print boarding passes and bag tags, drop off bags at the counter and proceed straight to their departure gates. The process takes an average of just 12 seconds per passenger now, compared with 27 seconds using the previous check-in kiosks and 65 seconds for a full-service check-in.

Business Spectator reported that in November Jetstar will become the second Australian airline to charge customers between $5 and $10 to be checked-in by a person behind the counter.

Tiger Australia, which charges a $20 fee for checking-in with a staff member, became the first Australian airline to introduce such a fee.

According to IBM, the smart-scanning technology Jetstar is using allows a passenger's secure information to be read even from mobile handsets that lack the ability to display graphical barcodes. Passengers simply place their phones in front of a camera built into the kiosk; the SMS confirmation message is photographed and the text it contains is analyzed.

While smartphones can display machine-readable barcodes, research suggested only 7 percent of Australians subscribe to mobile data plans. This severely restricted the use of barcode-based mobile check-in solutions. The SMS technology works with the vast majority of mobile phones today despite the differences in nuances between each kind of mobile phone.

The system, which includes Universal Scanner technology from Australian company Sissit Group, uses optical character recognition to analyze an image sent to the passenger's mobile phone via SMS messaging.

"Jetstar is continually looking for ways to give passengers more control over their airport experience, and we have been working with IBM to move to a 100 percent self-service environment to help passengers get through the airport and to their flight as quickly and smoothly as possible," Bruce Buchanan, Jetstar Group CEO, said in the press release. "By leveraging innovative technology and IBM's strong technical and implementation skills, we have been able to extend the benefits of SMS boarding to all Australian and New Zealand domestic travelers, regardless of the mobile phone they're using."

The self-service platform is built on IBM WebSphere technologies. IBM Global Business Services managed the integration of the Universal Scanner and the retrofitting of high-resolution camera hardware into more than 140 heavily used IBM N Series Common Use Self Service Kiosks across capital city and regional airports. The kiosks also boost check-in speed by 300 percent, according to IBM officials.

"Being able to use your mobile phone for check in, whether it's a smartphone or not, can help improve the travel experience, giving travelers the convenience they desire when flying," Doug Regan, partner, IBM Global Business Services, said in the release. "This new technology is an industry innovation that will help Jetstar deliver a check-in experience that's consistent across their Australia and New Zealand domestic networks. The challenge was getting a high level of reliability in reading the many types of handsets available today."

IBM is also in the process of implementing an improved check-in experience for Jetstar parent company Qantas in nearly 40 airports across the region.