A growing number of airports in Asia-Pacific have gone paperless with passengers utilising digital boarding passes on their smart devices and only printing a baggage tag if there is luggage to be checked-in.

According to Sumesh Patel, SITA president, Asia-Pacific, passengers can access paperless boarding passes in Beijing, Bangkok and five other airports in Thailand, four airports in India, and Bengaluru’s Terminal 2 – Brisbane is currently looking into this initiative as well.

Other sustainability measures taken include Hong Kong International Airport measuring the carbon footprint of stakeholders, and airlines such as Singapore Airlines and India’s Vistara working with SITA and saving 5,000 tonnes of carbon emissions a year for a fleet of every 20 aircraft.

SITA, he noted, was working with start-ups and also supporting the legacy system.

Findings in SITA’s 2023 Passenger IT Insight show that the use of new technologies supporting sustainability emerged as the number one initiative passengers value most for both airlines (64 per cent) and airports (62 per cent).

This has jumped from about half of passengers in 2022, showing that innovative approaches to achieving concrete emissions reductions are front of mind.

The report stated: “Such technologies include flight path optimisation to reduce fuel burn on the airline front, and tools that monitor data on environmental performance to reduce emissions at the airport.

“Nearly three in five passengers are interested in learning about the use of sustainable aviation fuels or other measures aimed at reducing the environmental impact of flights.

“Following closely behind, 53 per cent of passengers would like information about actions taken by the aviation industry to reverse environmental damage, while 52 per cent seek knowledge regarding the climate repercussions of travel.”

The trend, the report observed, aligned with the 2022 findings that passengers prioritise in-depth understanding of initiatives addressing carbon emissions over peripheral information such as sustainability accreditations or emissions statistics.

An encouraging outcome shows that “over half of passengers now believe that the air transport industry is making sufficient efforts to achieve sustainability goals, up five per cent from last year”.