Head Count

Boarding passes are scanned at the gate before you board a plane. But this doesn’t guarantee that the passenger actually gets on the plane, so flight attendants use a clicker to count passengers as they board the plane to match with the passenger manifest. Why? It’s so easy to accidentally click twice for a passenger or miss a click and then you have a mismatch and possibly a delay since planes cannot take off without the proper headcount.

https://au.lifestyle.yahoo.com/cabin-crew-hands-behind-backs-clickers-015153072.html

So why not eliminate mistakes and speed up the process by using a scanner on-board the plane that passengers can merely drag their boarding pass over and they are then accounted for? Thus eliminating the need for a clicker. The scanner can be linked to the passenger manifest and a computer automatically ticks them off as being on board and the manifest is instantly updated and accurate.

Maybe it’s just me but I like to err on the side of accuracy. What do you think?