Some things sound really cool -- until you actually have to step up and do them in real time. TUAW reader Gerald Buckley's story about traveling with his iPhone strikes me as belonging to this class.
When he approached the American Airlines counter to use his iPhone as a boarding pass, the coolness quotient for his entire trip got bumped up several notches. It seems that he navigated over to AA.com using Mobile Safari, signed in and displayed a PDF of his boarding pass on-screen. The American Airlines counter agent in San Antonio "humored" him and scanned the barcode as displayed on his iPhone. The scan worked, and Buckley proceeded with his travels (much to the envy and amazement of his fellow passengers, no doubt).
Here's the thing though. If it were me, this would have totally gone another way. First, while waiting on line, I would have had bad WiFi. It would have taken me about 20 minutes to type in my information and the people behind me on line would have been coughing *significantly* to get me to keep moving along with the line as I tried to type, move all my luggage and possibly keep three extremely rambunctious children in order. Finally, I would get to the gate agent and I would have gotten the snarky impatient version -- somehow I always do. Assuming that I could even get all the typing and navigation done, I know in my heart that the response would have been "you need a printed boarding pass, ma'am."
Of course, this is entirely academic because I have not been granted a boarding pass for the last 5 or 6 years due entirely, I'm sure, to my last name. It's always "You must check in at the counter" -- which is way easier than even a boarding pass because I just swipe my credit card.
All that having been said, TUAW congratulates Mr. Buckley's ingenuity and offers the example of his experience to speed you your travels in a uniquely geek fashion.
If you've got the travel bug (with or without your iPhone), be sure to visit our sister site Gadling for all things flight-related.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
4-22-2008 @ 2:40PM
Reade Whitney said...
i dont think this is anything new? ive done this on United and US Airways approximately everytime Ive flown since august 2007... i always brought the paper version just in case, but still...
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4-22-2008 @ 2:54PM
Jeff said...
As long as you leave your dock at home.... I got my carrying on rifled through at two different airports this past week because apparently the dock looks like a lighter. Last time i travel with that.
4-22-2008 @ 2:54PM
Fernando said...
I've done this too, in fact everything with a PDF reader can do this.
http://www.crowdspirit.com/blog/2007/12/16/continental-accepting-a-cell-phone-as-boarding-pass/
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4-22-2008 @ 2:58PM
Peter Zich said...
I'm surprised the screen door effect from the LCD doesn't affect the scanner, same with the antialiasing.
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4-22-2008 @ 3:03PM
Bender Bending Rodriguez said...
I've been doing this all over the US and EU for nearly a year now. I never have a printer with me in my travels. I was surprised when it scanned the first time and I don't recall anyone being ohed or awed by it.
Erica wrote, "Of course, this is entirely academic because I have not been granted a boarding pass for the last 5 or 6 years due entirely, I'm sure, to my last name."
HAHA That made me laugh. Though you do have a case for profiling. Though, truth be told, I'm all about profiling of people on planes.
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4-22-2008 @ 3:11PM
tim Skrastins said...
I think you're getting boarding passes and tickets mixed up. It's cost savings -- airlines generally don't issue paper tickets anymore. Sorry to strip you of your drama but it's not your last name. Fayed Al Zawahiri and Robert Smith both have the same process here.
Scanning the screen does sound pretty cool though. I agree that I'd bring paper backup so in the end what's the point.
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4-22-2008 @ 3:23PM
jsw said...
[Sorry to strip you of your drama but it's not your last name. Fayed Al Zawahiri and Robert Smith both have the same process here.]
Actually, it is her name, though it might not just be her last name. DHS uses a fuzzy phonetic matching system, so if there's a "bad guy" floating around named, I dunno, "Malik al Salhadin", she's swept in.
4-22-2008 @ 3:12PM
cart0194 said...
I am surprised that you were able to get through security. They always inspect and then write on the boarding pass. While I see this as cool and would be great to be able to do.... you'd always have to print out a paper one to get through the security check point.
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4-22-2008 @ 3:14PM
Mike said...
While I do not doubt the fact that the scanner at the gate will capture a barcode off of an iPhone pdf....I am curious how he got through TSA securtiy without a paper boarding pass.
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4-22-2008 @ 3:18PM
rg said...
You'd get better results waiting "in" line to get onto a plane and "on" line to view your boarding pass!
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4-22-2008 @ 3:23PM
Laurence said...
Ive done this multiple times now. Air Canada actually encourages this process, and suggests using your Blackberry or other mobile device to check into your flight before going to the airport... we don't have iPhone yet though... but I used my iPod Touch Safari/Mail with no problems either, though I do it before heading to the airport... well.. actually 24 hours before my flight so I have the best choice of seats online.
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4-22-2008 @ 3:28PM
badtzmaru said...
I use my iPhone to show my confirmation ticket for the Chinatown bus. Does that count?
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4-22-2008 @ 4:19PM
Dan said...
Yes.
4-22-2008 @ 3:29PM
Vic said...
When I was looking for a Nintendo Wii, I would bring up the UPC code and scan it on the price scanners at Target to see if they had any in their back inventory. It would tell me the shelf location and quantity in inventory. If they were in the system, even if they weren't on the shelves, I would know it. Unfortunately, the rosetta scanners at Wal-Mart wouldn't read the same UPC so I couldn't do the same trick there.
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4-22-2008 @ 3:40PM
Reade Whitney said...
i forgot to say in the last one that i only had trouble at TPA with security, but DEN was totally all for it. I have also just tested the scanning ability at a local Publix grocery store using a coupon barcode I had in an emailed PDF format... success!
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4-22-2008 @ 3:49PM
KTswami said...
Uh, except Erica, that your iPhone doesn't need wifi..EDGE works too, no? :) (Or you can preload it all, like they do in the iPhone TV ads.) :)
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4-22-2008 @ 3:54PM
Paul said...
I did this at Macworld this year. Walking up to the registration desk, I realized I couldn't find the print out of my registration confirmation email. I'd probably dropped it in the BART somewhere (I never did find it).
The registration desk happily scanned the bar code from the email on my iPhone.
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4-22-2008 @ 3:58PM
Steven Fowler said...
Yeah, Continental has offered this service for at least 6 months now.
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4-23-2008 @ 4:30PM
ted pollari said...
I was behind a gent who tried to do this in Houston this weekend... after 10 tries to get it to scan, the gate agent got sick of it and printed him a boarding pass. Thanks but no thanks. I'll stick to the paper options for now.
4-22-2008 @ 4:22PM
Alva said...
How does TSA security work though?
I've thought about this many a time, but I figured they'd say no because they couldn't write on/stamp my ticket, nor could I present it to the officer at the metal detector because my phone's on the X-ray belt.
Anyone care to elaborate?
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