Passengers can now add a payment card to Spanish low-cost airline Vueling’s app and use it to pay for flights, just by tapping a contactless credit card to their NFC phone.

Those without an NFC phone meanwhile can take a picture of their card using their smartphone’s camera to enter the relevant data.

The optional service, added to the app last month, provides passengers with a “much simpler experience, which is what technology is for”, according to the airline.

“The NFC system reads and transmits wireless data and it needs a contactless credit card and a terminal enabled for its use,” the company explains.

“The scanning system requires only a camera phone to photograph the credit card. The system extracts the necessary data from the photo and transmits it automatically to the app.

“The service is optional and can be invoked from the payment data screen. There, the user may choose one of these options for automatically entering the personal and credit card data needed for a purchase. At the end of the process, the user must select Pay Now to complete the payment. For security’s sake, they are enabled only to fill in the data, but not to complete the purchase.

“A version for Apple iOS is initially confined to storing credit card data which can be retrieved only upon detection of the user’s fingerprint when needed for a purchase.”

“We have to take advantage of the speed of technological advances to enable the customer to worry only about when and where to fly, and not waste time copying credit card numbers for example,” says Vueling IT chief Samuel Lacarta.

“If we can do this without compromising security, the customer will have a much simpler experience, which is what technology is for.”