March 19, 2008 – Continental Airlines and American Airlines are getting ready to bring to life a new technology that has already taken off in Japan and that we have talked about before: using cell phones as boarding passes. The process of being able to use a cell phone as a boarding pass will hopefully speed up the boarding pass considerably. All users will have to do is show what is essentially a picture of a boarding pass on their cell phones screen to an attendant holding a scanner. The question is, if America becomes open and receptive to the idea, will it catch on world wide? Of course, we have to inform the public about this new technology first.

80% of airline passengers already choose from several different self-service options when checking in at the airline terminal. There are several other airlines that are already using cell phone boarding pass options, however Continental will be the first to introduce this option to the United States.

The boarding pass itself is a bar code encrypted with the passengers’ boarding information. By using this type of technology, airlines will be eliminating a few steps for their customers between booking their flight and boarding the airlines. Mobile services for airline passengers may also include other information in the future such as messaging regarding on=board services, rebooking options, and actually ticket purchasing.

This technological advance would also work to eliminate fraud such as copying airline tickets. The encrypted bar code on the cell phone’s screen would be much harder to copy than the paper format being used in most places now.

Jeanna Lee

Source: nytimes.com