At a designated time prior to aircraft departure (usually approximately 20 minutes), the boarding process begins. The AS systems’ boarding process also includes the boarding announcements and gate monitors. The agent opens the flight in boarding mode at the gate. This then activates the functions for announcements and gate monitors. To activate these functions the agent must enter the correct flight, add the gate number and choose from a drop down list of possible boarding calls and languages the calls are to be made in. These calls include the initial ready to begin boarding announcement, final boarding call and delayed boarding announcement. Once the correct call has been activated the corresponding information will also appear on the gate monitors for the passengers to physically see. At present the AS system only allows for one airline operator code and flight number in the boarding system, gate monitors and boarding announcements. This may cause a problem for code-share flights.

The boarding screen is also separated into 3 sections. These sections are:

o A screen showing total number of passengers boarded, checked-in and missing.
o A screen showing the names and baggage details of passengers boarded.
o A screen showing the names and baggage details of passengers not boarded.

As each passenger passes through the gate, his or her boarding card is fed into the boarding card reader machine. The machine then reads the boarding card and all information on the boarding screen changes i.e. Checked, boarded and missing figures all change and also the list of passenger and baggage details for missing and boarded passengers will be updated. At the moment the boarding card information is read the passenger name, flight and destination flashes up on the screen for 5 seconds. The machine stores part of the boarding card and the other part is fed out at the top of the machine for the passenger to retain.

If a passenger with a boarding card for a different flight tries to board, the boarding card reader sounds a small alarm and a warning appears on the screen to say it is an incorrect boarding card for that particular flight. The warning also tells the user which flight the passenger should be traveling on and then rejects the boarding card in one whole piece.

If the boarding card has been damaged or is unreadable e.g. folded up so that the magnetic strip is damaged, the agent may then reconcile the passenger manually. This is also a very quick procedure whereby the agent chooses the passenger name from the list of unreconciled (or missing) passengers by using the arrow keys or mouse and highlights the passenger name and clicks a button for manual boarding.

For very large aircrafts or to assist in a rapid boarding of one flight, it is also possible to open the flight at more than one gate, using more than one boarding card reader and gate monitor at the same time.

There is also another function whereby a small amount of free format information can be sent on a particular passenger to the boarding gate to advise the gate agent of information they may need to know e.g. check passengers’ hand baggage as too large for cabin.

ATB tickets can also be used as a passenger boarding card and the boarding card reader will process an ATB the same as a normal boarding card.

On completion of the boarding process the agent will activate the Finish Boarding entry to advise the weight and balance department and check-in that the aircraft is boarded.