What is a Boarding Pass (IATA BCBP PDF417) barcode?
Airline boarding passes use the IATA Bar Coded Boarding Pass (BCBP) standard. On paper passes the data is usually printed as PDF417; mobile passes may use Aztec, QR or Data Matrix.
The BCBP string has fixed-width fields. It starts with the format code M and the number of legs, then the passenger name, electronic ticket indicator, booking reference, origin and destination airports, carrier, flight number, date as day of year, cabin, seat and sequence number, followed by optional conditional fields.
This preset is meant for developers testing scanning and parsing, and for demos. A barcode made here is not a real boarding pass: airports validate passes against airline data.
What data can Boarding Pass (IATA BCBP PDF417) hold?
An IATA BCBP text string with its fixed-width fields and spaces kept exactly, for example M1DESMARAIS/LUC EABC123 YULFRAAC 0834 326J001A0025 100.
Recommended size
Leave a quiet zone of at least 2 modules around the PDF417. Print it wide enough for gate readers, or show it full width on a phone screen with good brightness.
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Frequently Asked Questions
No. Only passes issued by the airline are valid, and gates check them against airline systems.
BCBP fields have fixed widths and are padded with spaces. Removing them shifts the fields and breaks parsing.
The flight date is the day of the year as 3 digits, such as 326. It has no month or year.