How many times have you found yourself standing in line at the airport, waiting to board your flight as you witness the usual cutting-the-queue antics of first-timers, encounter  ‘accidental’ nudges from the greasy-looking man standing behind you or develop a pressure to pee for the 17th time when you had just taken a leak?

Singapore’s Changi airport, in an experimental move, will soon have self-boarding gates so that passengers can save time and board their flights faster. This technology will allow flyers to scan their boarding passes using a barcode reader installed in these gates. The authorities say that the time taken by passengers to board flights will be reduced by almost 50 percent!

Ground staff will be present at all times in case additional assistance is required. German airlines Lufthansa has been conducting trials of these self-boarding gates for the past few months. This feature is expected to be activated by April 2014 in all three terminals of the Changi airport.

Self-boarding gates are expected to save a great amount of time and be instrumental in ensuring that the scheduled departure-time of flights is maintained. Other projects in the pipeline include features such as self check-ins and self bag drops.

The move comes as a part of the fast and seamless travel (FAST) plan that has been undertaken by the Changi Airport Group. We certainly hope for the venture to be a successful one so that the trend picks up all over the world!