Ryanair is to offer self-service payment terminals equipped with chip-and-PIN readers to allow customers to purchase services at the airport.

The initial phase of the rollout will see 250 unmanned kiosks installed in London Stansted airport, followed by deployments in Barcelona, Belfast, Frankfurt and Marseille.

Ryanair claims the initiative is a world first and plans to expand it to 450 kiosks.

The terminals, developed in partnership with Ingenico, comprise an electronic payment system, centralised hosting of the transaction management system and PIN pads.

Payment security has also been covered and the system running on the terminals is compliant with PCI-DSS standards, as well as rules set by Visa and MasterCard for secure payments.

The introduction of the kiosks is part of Ryanair’s move to automate its processes as a way to generate more demand, Eric Neville, Ryanair’s IT director, told Computing last month.

The carrier is already moving to an entirely online check-in process and will remove all its physical check-in desks from 146 airports by October. Passengers will use drop points to deposit their hold baggage.

Customers can use the self-service terminals to purchase the services they require when they arrive at the airport, such as priority boarding.

Budget airline Easyjet has also trialled terminals, but found they would not offer a clear service advantage as they were too slow and also expensive, as employees are often needed to assist passengers who have difficulty using the equipment.

“We always had the principle that passenger self-service is a good thing, but we won’t introduce things at the expense of a reduction in customer service,” said Tim Newing, IT director at Easyjet.