France’s Toulouse-Blagnac Airport is gearing up to test a new service that lets passengers check-in, access their departure gates and pass through other controlled areas using just an NFC-enabled mobile phone.

The trial, which involves partners SITA, Orange, and BlackBerry, will launch this summer with 50 selected passengers using their BlackBerry smart phones equipped with an NFC-enabled SIM card.

According to SITA, the phone will effectively become the passengers’ pass enabling them to access parking lots, boarding areas and even a passenger lounge. At the same time, passengers will receive up to the minute information such as changes to their flight times or boarding gate.

“Using the GSMA SIM-based NFC technology during the passenger journey provides many benefits over current technology,” said Renaud Irminger, director of SITA Lab. “It is extremely secure, will work when the device is powered off, does not require the passenger to launch an app or retrieve an SMS or an email, and is not affected by reading problems caused by dirty screens. Overall, a passenger using an NFC-enabled device can be processed faster than any of the boarding processes available today.”