Consumers are beginning to expect a mobile payments option when booking airline tickets, claims a recent WorldPay Perfect Passenger Payments insight report (view press release). The study was conducted across 4,500 consumers and 51 airline merchants from the UK, US, China, Japan, Brazil, Finland, Spain, Germany and France. While only 6% of consumers have booked a ticket on a mobile device in the past 12 months, 50% say they would if they had the option and 62% expect the option to be made available to them soon. 56% already travel with a smartphone or tablet, and 61% wish they could use it to check-in.

The report also showed that 28% felt they had been presented with hidden surcharges, which are highest in the UK with 41% saying the charges had not been made clear at the outset, and lowest in Japan at 8%. Mobile payments were most frequent in China at 34% with 50% owning e-wallets, but most consumers (68%) made their payments using a personal credit card. In the UK consumers are most likely to pay by debit card (61%) than credit card (56%). 80% of consumers surveyed thought it was unfair to be charged for their choice of payment type, particularly those using e-wallets (87%), direct debits (86%), and debit cards (84%).

The UK was the most security-conscious, with only 19% saying they would prefer a faster booking process over more security questions, compared to 66% in China.