The Birmingham Star reports that Japan Airlines is considering the establishment of a low-cost carrier while it goes through its state-supervised restructure.

JAL may submit plans for a budget arm on Tuesday, when it fronts the Supreme Court in Tokyo. Management at JAL have already expressed interest in a business model that will intensify competition to reduce air fares. Sources within the company have said that an increase in the number of flight slots at Haneda and Narita airports makes the entry of another Japanese budget carrier viable. All Nippon Airways has recently also expressed plans to establish a no-frills airline.

Consumers accustomed to using self-service kiosks to withdraw cash, pay for groceries, and check in for flights are finding do-it-yourself computer stations in new and sometimes unexpected places.

Some doctors’ offices are using the stations to check in patients. Hotel customers can check in or even buy accessories such as bathing suits. Movie tickets, cruise-line boarding passes, and DVD movie rentals can, in many places, be picked up with the swipe of a credit card.

“We’re seeing self-service technology take off in really in every industry,” said Jeff Dudash, spokesman for NCR, the company that creates most of these machines and invented the automated teller machine.

That’s because customers are used to having more control, and for the most part, they’re loving it, said trend researchers.

Read more on toledoblade,com …

This will be the fifth in the series of highly successful international events, attracting up to 400 airports, airlines, security and immigration agencies, handlers, hotels, cruise operators, solution providers, planners and suppliers from around the world to discuss the most efficient, cost effective and customer friendly means of processing passengers through airports, hotels and cruise liners and how facilities should adapt to evolving technologies and stakeholder requirements.

Delivered in partnership with McCarran International Airport, and IATA (who will stage a supporting Simplifying the Business workshop on September 8th) at the MGM Grand, Las Vegas on September 8-10th, the event aims to provide a forum for all levels of experience; beginners and established travel industry stakeholders alike can share experiences and work to agree standards, best practice and procedures, as well as provide key insight on how check-in practices will evolve in the long term and what impact this will have on systems and facilities.

Key advancements will be covered through presentations and panel discussions involving all stakeholders, plus architects and planners, in areas such as CUPPS, web-based check-in, ADIX, FT, PCI, XML, offsite check-in and bag drop, self tagging, airport layout, common bag drop, biometrics, self boarding, RFID, new generation bag tags, near field communications (NFC), facilitation, baggage reflight, location based services, automated border clearance etc.

Crucially, the debate will always return to how developments in each of these fields can, and must, be integrated into the ‘Terminal of the Future’. R&D Hub will be there, meet you …

Ric Merrifield writes on Blogging Innovation why credit cards won’t exist in 10 years : Our mobile devices will be the “credit card” of the future. You would “beam” some information to the merchant about yourself (it could even be your Paypal account – which, at a restaurant you could include in your OpenTable reservation and skip the “beam” step) they then transmit to you the amount you owe, you click some sort of “agree to pay” button and that’s it. It would also ask you if you want to pay a gratuity, which you could also have pre-programmed to calculate percentages so you don’t have to do that math in your head after a glass of wine. It’s easy to password protect cell phones, so if you lose it you aren’t going to get hijacked by whoever finds it. The way things are going, we will be having mobile devices with us for a long, long time, …

Read more on Blogging Innovation …

Last September, we wrote about Planeshop, an innovative new airport retail concept developed by the pop-up retail pioneers who launched Vacant. Planeshop’s principle is simple: it lets different brands take turns running its permanent store. Now, 11 months later, Planeshop is opening in a former departure lounge at Glasgow Airport.

The first brand on rotation at Planeshop is Californian sports label K-Swiss, which will be using the space to sell and market its sneakers and clothing. The store’s exterior is entirely K-Swiss branded, billboard-style, while the interior features black-and-white graphics by a Glaswegian designer.

To put it mildly, opening an airport store can be challenging. For brands who want to test a market, launch a new product or reach consumers in vacation mode, Planeshop removes most of that friction. It will be announcing its next guest brand in a few weeks. And the company is thinking big — it aims to open Planeshops in airports around the world. (Related: Nationwide network of pop-up marketing spaces.)

Website: www.planeshop.net via springwise.com …

Over the weekend it was reported that Apple hired Benjamin Vigier, an expert in near field communication (NFC), a short range wireless protocol most synonymous with contactless payments. This key Apple hire is perhaps the strongest public signal yet of Apple’s intent to use NFC to build on its micropayments franchise and disrupt traditional point of sale using a mobile commerce model.

Read more on techcrunch.com …

A new flight search site, hipmunk, positioned as “Better Flight Search” has been launched by Steve Huffman and Adam Goldstein.

“Most flight search sites haven’t changed in years. They have an intimidating search page and endless pages of flight results. Finding the right flight often takes all afternoon—or all week,” the company says on its website. “At Hipmunk, we make your experience a lot better. We’re building better interfaces for searching, browsing, and filtering your flight search results.”

Consumers want to manage travel itinerary changes and preferences via self-service channels, according to OnWindows, an online news source from Microsoft. A survey by BuzzBack Market Research for NCR Corp. shows consumers who now check-in for flights online by mobile phone and at kiosks also want to be able to use self-service technology to manage their entire travel experience, including delays and cancellations. Eighty-two percent of respondents globally said they would find it helpful if airlines gave them the control to search and select alternative flights.

Flight cancellations and delays have many knock-on impacts on passengers’ onward travel plans. As a result, 78 percent of respondents said they would be more likely to choose a travel provider that enables them to manage their entire travel experience through self-service, such as search, secure or make changes to flight, car rental and hotel reservations.

Two-fifths of respondents would like to receive retail and concession offers, based on their product preferences and current location, via their mobiles or kiosks. In addition, a third of respondents would like to keep entertained by using self-service technology to download movies and music. And almost two-fifths would like to use a mobile boarding pass to speed their way through security.

FlightNetwork.com’s first poll focussing on ‘travel pet peeves ‘ reveals that out of the 768 Canadians polled, 77.6% indentified added fees (eg. paying for additional luggage) as one of their top three air travel pet peeves. Rounding out the top three were cramped seats (63.5%) and flight delays (40.0%).

Surprisingly, rude passengers scored relatively low as a pet peeve at 30.3% along with babies and children making noise at 21.5%. Also Identified as top travel peeves were long security checks (29.8%), lack of in-flight service (24.5%) and plus sized passengers taking up too much room at 12.8%.

“As air carriers continue to charge added fees, Canadians will continue to weigh the costs,” said Naman Budhdeo, CEO of FlightNetwork.com. “The important thing is for Canadians to continue to have a choice between cost savings and reasonable flight amenities.”

Running until December 2010, the State of Air Travel Poll will utilize FlightNetwork.com’s Blog, Facebook page and customer database to reach Canadians and ask for their input. Poll topics will cover a range of issues including green travel, plus sized passengers, if cell phones should be allowed on planes and Canada’s best and worst airports.

Mobile ticketing may offer myriad benefits for both event managers and consumers, but most options still require specialized scanning hardware to read the ticket from the user’s device. Not so Twicketer, a new service that delivers event tickets that can be verified and validated right on the smartphone.

Now in beta, Wisconsin-based Twicketer is powered by technology from its Danish parent company,ScreenTicket, that uses a patent-pending system called On Device Verification. How it works: Event managers can send out links with a shortened URL to their events through social media including Twitter, Facebook and MySpace. From there, attendees can buy their mobile tickets online by simply following the included link. Once it’s time for the event, the mobile ticket can be scanned and verified onsite without any scanning hardware. Twicketer charges a service fee of USD 0.99 for every ticket sold; it can also be used to distribute mobile coupons and vouchers.

Currently, Twicketer can deliver mobile tickets to more than 200 countries via more than 800 mobile carriers. Custom branding is available, as is a comprehensive API. One to try out for your next event, coupon or other paperless promotion…? (Related: Ticketing marketplace makes prices negotiable.)

Website: www.twicketer.com
Contact: info@twicketer.com

Spotted by: Stas Zlobinski, via springwise.com …

It’s the end of R&D as we’ve known it. How are you managing the new R&D?  Kalypso tries to give an answer ….