MR CHARLES O.
Verihard (to use)
I promised to update readers on my recent review of Verifly (14 November), urged on us by Aerlingus. Turned up to check in at Birmingham and sailed through with no Verifly. We did arrive quite early and the queue was short. Check-in staff were uninterested in Verifly. Arriving to board the Dublin - JFK flight, quite a lot of passengers were showing their Verifly ‘Ready to travel’ pass on their phones and Verifly pass holders were called to board before others. We just joined them and somewhat nervously told the person checking passes that we hadn’t got one because it was impossible to get one from Birmingham. “No problem” came the reply. We just waved our various documents and were allowed to board. For the return journey from Boston to Birmingham I did get Verifly passes, it is a fiddly and time-consuming business involving uploading or scanning documents. It isn’t user-friendly, especially for older travellers, but I managed it. Checking in at Boston there was a dedicated Verifly pass holder queue but the other queue wasn’t appreciably longer. I’ve raised my rating from one star to two stars, but essentially this is a device for shifting the time spent queuing to time spent trying to make Verifly work. I suppose it saves airlines some difficulty, and it’s probably here to stay, but it is still half-baked, irritating and discriminatory against the less tech savvy.