Filed under: iPod Family, Cult of Mac, iPhone
iPhone on the Road: a substitute for paper boarding passes
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.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Reade Whitney said 2:40PM on 4-22-2008
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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Jeff said 2:54PM on 4-22-2008
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.
KTswami said 3:49PM on 4-22-2008
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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Fernando said 2:54PM on 4-22-2008
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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Peter Zich said 2:58PM on 4-22-2008
I'm surprised the screen door effect from the LCD doesn't affect the scanner, same with the antialiasing.
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Bender Bending Rodriguez said 3:03PM on 4-22-2008
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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tim Skrastins said 3:11PM on 4-22-2008
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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jsw said 3:23PM on 4-22-2008
[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.
cart0194 said 3:12PM on 4-22-2008
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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Mike said 3:14PM on 4-22-2008
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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rg said 3:18PM on 4-22-2008
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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Laurence said 3:23PM on 4-22-2008
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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badtzmaru said 3:28PM on 4-22-2008
I use my iPhone to show my confirmation ticket for the Chinatown bus. Does that count?
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Dan said 4:19PM on 4-22-2008
Yes.
Vic said 3:29PM on 4-22-2008
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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Reade Whitney said 3:40PM on 4-22-2008
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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jack said 4:50PM on 4-22-2008
As a couple of posters have pointed out, I doubt the TSA folks would let someone through without a paper boarding pass; Buckley's original post talked about scanning an image of the bar code at the gate, not at the ticket counter or security.
That said, though, I did this at an Apple Store when collecting my $100 rebate on the iPhone. I logged on with mobile Safari, got the PDF with the bar code on the screen, then proceeded to checkout. The sales guy got a little bit of a funny look on his face when I presented him with my phone to verify my discount, but he eventually figured out that he couldn't very well deny me an Apple rebate especially since I was presenting the coupon to him on an iPhone. What made it even more fun is that I was using the discount to buy another iPhone as a gift.
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badtzmaru said 7:28PM on 4-22-2008
HA! I tried to do that with my iPhone rebate and the store made me print mine out! How silly of them.
Paul said 3:54PM on 4-22-2008
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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Steven Fowler said 3:58PM on 4-22-2008
Yeah, Continental has offered this service for at least 6 months now.
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