Alright, lets pat the pockets and run through the mental checklist one last time before security: Passport? Check, front pocket. Headphones? Definitely in your backpack. Boarding pass? Uh oh. Where’d that boarding pass go?
Oh, that’s right! It’s on your phone – because you, like a rapidly increasing number of other people, opted to have it sent straight to your handset. Security scans the barcode right off of your handset’s display, and you’re on your way with one less thing to lose.
Trinity Mobile, one of the leading companies behind the mobile ticketing push, is today announcing a 1200% year-over-year increase with their mobile boarding pass offerings.
In 2008, Trinity Mobile saw 50,000 users opt-in to receive mobile boarding passes rather than the more traditional options. In 2009, this number shot up to 600,000. That’s still a drop in the bucket compared to the number of people flying with ol’ fashion boarding passes each and every day – but considering that that growth is almost entirely driven by users picking the option when its offered to them (without any real marketing push by Trinity or the airlines they’ve partnered with), it’s pretty impressive.
Jupiter Research backs up the fact that the trend is skyrocketing; according to their 2010 Mobile Ticketing report, over 2 billion mobile boarding passes will be sent out in 2010, with that number expected to blast up to 15 billion by 2014.
Anecdotally, I can honestly say I’ve also noticed a massive uptick in mobile boarding pass usage. As someone who travels somewhat frequently, I’ve seen at least a handful of people going that route on each trip I’ve taken over the past few months – especially on flights in Europe. I’ve yet to be offered a chance to do it myself – but given that I’m the type of person who clutches on to their boarding pass like it’s ice water in Hell, I’d jump on it on a heartbeat.
What about you? Have you used a mobile boarding pass yet? What were your experiences?
[Image Credit: Paramount Pictures]
I’m pretty surprised that all mobile ticketing hasnt taken off more. Why do we still have printed concert tickets when everything should be send via email or text.
@mark I couldn’t agree more. One up-and-coming ticketing platform, Fatsoma is working with Trinity Mobile to produce a paperless ticketing system for live music and nightlife events.
@mark @ray My startup MogoTix is working on making mobile ticketing simple for everyone to use.
We hope to launch soon. :)
Mobile Boarding Passes Take Off With 1200% Usage Increase In 2009 http://bit.ly/cJACO9
er~This is indeed very convenient
Actually, ticket master (and live nation) charge users $2.50 (if I remember correctly) to have tickets emailed, but they will print them and mail them for free. So I have them mailed every time.
Yes, electronic stuff if faster and more convenient, but I’m not willing to pay more for it. It’s especially infuriating because I know it would save Ticket Master money to email me my tickets.
Think they also charge you to print it out on your own computer… not 100% sure about that.
This is probably off-topic and pedantic, but in the photo, that’s an Aztec code. Trinity uses Data Matrix. Neither is a QR code. I’m surprised there’s still fragmentation in this rather basic element of the infrastructure. Can’t we all just use QR codes, indeed?
actually IATA standard demand Aztec code and not any other variation.
With more than 6000miles between me and my other half, I do fly quite regularly. I have tried to get the ticket onto my phone multiple times, but the technology doesn’t seem to be ready for prime time yet. At least for QatarAirways, the only receiving option is to get your ticket sent to your phone via MMS. Unfortunately, MMS is not set up on most of the phones I ever owned. With my current android based phone, I can surf the net, but MMS still doesn’t work (wtf?!). Might be that I’m just too stupid to set it up. Considering that I develop for android and other mobile devices however, I guess there are a few more with that problem.
btw. I had a short chat with the check-in staff during my last flight. They were clearly happy that I arrived with a “normal” ticket and reported that the new mobile check-in machines are giving the quite some headaches. Might just be an adoption problem though.
Vinh- You do mean ’6,000 miles’ a month, right?
I had the same experience using an electronic boarding pass in Atlanta. TSA told me mine was the only one that worked that day, and at the gate the airline folks looked at it, asked for my id and then printed out a boarding pass since their machine at the gate could not scan from my iPhone.
Traveling mainly in Europe and being based in Barcelona, I’m frequently flying with Vueling, a Spanish low-cost company.
And they do provide a great mobile boarding pass system.
To keep it short, it sends a sms integrating a link to a web-page where you will find the Aztec code (or whatever the name). While arriving at the airport, just show your mobile to the security and boarding doors and you’re done.
It is particularly efficient and useful when you’re in an unknown city without access to a printer. It saves me a lot of time.
The French national railway company (SNCF) is starting to use mobile tickets also but being based on an application, it only works with Iphone owners. On the other side, the Vueling system works with any mobile device integrating a web-browser.
The main problem, for the time being, is that all companies are using different systems. So I might be flying from Barcelona and be able to use it but not on my way back if the airport is not equipped (in Paris for example). I do not know if that’s an issue of Airport or companies but if would be nice if, for the first time ever, companies could get a bit smarter and collaborative by integrating a common platform for everyone.
Also, what about old-fashion handsets’ users? While it may be a way to reduce costs and the hassle of printing and keeping your boarding pass, mobile passes only works with smartphone users. I came across an interesting company while attending the #MWC: masabi.com /It allows you to buy tickets and get a mobile pass on almost any handset. They are only in UK for the time being but this kind of initiative could really be a huge hit and not only a “geek-oriented” idea (PS: they are looking for new investors in order to penetrate other countries…!)
also, getting the digital boarding pass via overpriced MMS while roaming abroad is not ideal…
this can only take off when roaming surcharges are abolished and/or free wifi is ubiquitous in all airports
I have used this with Lufthansa. I ended up worrying about what happens if my battery dies while at the gate, as can happen at the end of a long days travelling, so I’ve subsequently gone back to paper. Anyone had this experience?
Great point- re-issue boarding pass at kiosk? don’t know
If you’re through security and at the gate, they can board you without a BP (physical or electronic), but it’s slow. (See my tip about noting down your BN below).
if it dies before you get the airport, most *reasonable* airlines will re-issue a BP, either from a kiosk or the check-in desk. (Don’t expect that to be the case with the spiteful Ryanair, who will probably hit you with a GBP40 “re-printing fee” if they move to electronic BPs and your battery dies).
The worst case is that the mobile dies after security but before you get to the gate. Then it’s almost impossible to get into the lounge, and there’s nowhere to get a replacement BP printed out. Now that’s a risk….
And I hope this does not happen on that 24 hr travel day;)
you are getting me all cheery about virtual BP’s
Mobile BPs are a great thing, but you need to educate yourself about them before turning up at the airport. Often the people at the head of the security queue aren’t familiar with them, and that requires some patient explanation. It’s also worth turning up the time that your phone backlight is on for, and “bumping” the keypad before you offer it for scanning at the gate, as the contrast between black and white isn’t great enough on a dim display. On my Nokia phone, I can receive a link (via SMS) to the BP as a webpage, which I can save to the phone locally. That means I don’t need connectivity in the airport/at the gate.
As a total “disaster” fallback, take a note of the “BN” number that appears on some/most of the mobile Boarding Passes. If you give this to the gate staff, they can find you manually faster.
I use it quite regularly with Scandinavian Airlines, too bad not many airports support them. SAS gives you a m-boarding pass which is just a webpage you load on your phone´s browser, much more simple and effective than sending an MMS (which didn´t work when I tried to use it with Spanair for example, as I don´t have a Spanish number).
It makes sense. It streamlines the boarding process.
Love the photo, but the Photoshop work leaves a bit to be desired. Is that hand coming out of George Clooney’s left kneecap? Seriously though, the photo editors at TC rock – as I just commented over at http://techcrunch.com/2010/03/02/google-htc-apple-lawsuit/trackback/ .
I’ve had success with these at security at Atlanta Hartsfield, but the individual gates for Delta at least are not equipped to scan them. So they end up issuing me a printed pass at the gate when I try to board the plane…at which point I ask, what’s the point? I’ve just annoyed everyone in line behind me. I won’t be using them anymore until after Delta gets its act together.
From my experience, the tech and training is not yet ready for primetime, I tried this on an American Airlines flight a few weeks ago and wasn’t ever able to get it to scan at the gate.
What’s great is that I held up the line for a few minutes while myself and the gate agent tried to adjust and angle the BP code on my iPhone to scan. The queue of people clamoring to get to their seats behind me seemed to really enjoy this slowdown. What was odd was that they seemed to respond with sighs and eye-rolling – must be an American thing.
Fortunately I had a backup old-school paper BP which worked like a charm.
Although it didn’t work at the gate, TSA understood the concept and didn’t hassle me like I expected.
I’m sticking with paper BP’s for now. No need to futz with all of this when you just want to sit down and relax with a G&T on your flight home.
i like this. really.
Not one of the American companies offer this service on the iPhone from what I can tell. Such a shame.
We are working on it. =]
There has been some trials recently.
http://bit.ly/bz9Yn2
Continental does on any phone with a web browser (AFAIK). I’ve used it many times on my BB Curve so I can’t imagine it not working on an iphone.
I’ve flown both international and domestic in the U.S. with my boarding pass on my iPhone using Northwest/Delta from select cities (MSP is one). I’ve witnessed a slight uptick recently with fellow passengers using it. Its fairly slick if my screen is clean of smudges and I flip the email into landscape mode. The TSA and airline staff are getting more savvy with the reader, instructing new users to hold the phone an inch or so from the reader. Anecdotally, I’ve been told by skeptical airline employees that the scanner works better on iPhones than some other smart phones – I’m not technologically sophisticated enough to believe this or understand why that could be.
In Germany eTickets were introduced for trains even before the airlines did so. Hence for the last two or three years it is in place I use the system and am really happy with it. Especially that the classic printed versions had to be treated carefully to avoid kinks in the codes.
In general it’s the best way to be sure you have you ticket with you and do not have to care how you treat it. If I could decide digital tickets should become the standard rather than en opt-in solution.
Only pitty of the solution offered is that cross national traintickets are not available in digital versions as the different train companies haven’t agreed on a common standard yet.
@mark
Trinity Mobile also works with rail and bus companies, and concert/club/festivals for mobile ticketing.
I saw this option for the first time last week when I couldnt find a printer handy in the new office. I had my doubts about the security guys accepting it as a valid boarding pass given all the security concerns nowadays- but it looked like they were pretty used to it! Extremely smooth and hassle free.
I have been using these when available for over a year now. I normally fly from Toronto on Air Canada. I have flown back from LHR using this recently as well. Air Canada has creadted a pretty good smart phone app for the BB and iPhone to manage this.
The first couple of times were pretty interesting. The people at security didn’t quite know what to do with it, but they caught on quickly.
The best though was complying with my company’s expense policies. They require the boarding pass to be submitted with the expenses. I had saved the .jpg file representing the pass and printed it to turn in with my paper receipts. It took a few phone calls to sort it out.
Overall, I really like this.
This looks awesome. Looks like the smart phones are revolutionizing everything we do now.
Travel is changing.
If you fly American Airlines and Continental Airlines, you should check out Airside Mobile: http://www.airsidemobile.com
If I was an airline company I would be worried about hackers making up their own boarding passes to give themselves free flights.
It sounds like a really cool idea though and hope it takes off. I hope they have a back up solution though if you happen to lose your iphone, etc.
Have used on iPhone and iPod touch at Atlanta Hartsfield with great success through security and at Delta gates (regular paper scanner reads it at the gate).
We have seen an upsurge in requirments for hardware to scan mobile tickets including…
– Ferry companies issuing mobile tickets
– Festival & Venues
– Events
There is a nice case study here for a solution used in Germany by an events company around the launch of a new vessel at Hamburg Harbour.
https://easeofaccess.scanning.datalogic.com/public/marketlit/Send.aspx?file=SS-NANOCRYPT-ENA4
It worked for me on an American Airlines flight originating from Terminal A at DFW earlier this week. The boarding pass was accessible from a link embedded in an e-mail received via AA.com. The scanner at security worked flawlessly, but the one at the gate needed to scan the iPhone a couple of times. One suggestion might be to increase the screen brightness.
One limitation of the system (at least, with AA) is that it doesn’t work at the gate if a passenger on standby is able to get on an earlier flight. Ideally, the entire standby procedure should be handled electronically (instead of the usual crowds congregating in front of the service agents) with a new mobile boarding pass being issued automatically.
I use mobile boarding passes all the time with Air France and Lufthansa.
Both companies work well when starting from Nice.
Return trips from Japan/China/USA don’t work so well, but within Europe (ex.UK) works in many counties. It seems the readers are standardized in Europe.
Technology is everywhere. Due to this service, cutting of trees will certainly lessen down. Paperless offices should be promoted as soon as possible so that we can save our forests.
Claas findet das super
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My Alaska Airlines mobile boarding pass on iPhone failed at every point of contact today. The TSA screener’s handheld scanner didn’t work and made me go back to a machine to get paper and go to the back of the line. The gate agent in LAX had no idea why I was handing her me cell phone and I had to step out of line and ask the desk agent for help, who was able to find my seat number and just waved me on. Then, in Seattle, the gate agent was familiar with the mobile process when boarding, but the scanner would not read the code, and after a full minute of trying, she just manually found me on the computer and let me on. In my opinion, this technology is actually slower and less efficient than paper… Everyone’s phone screen is different resolution, and varying brightness, so until ALL the employees know what to do, and the scanners work much better than now, I’ll stick with my paper boarding pass.