Continental testing visual boarding passes on cell phones

Here's an idea that's long overdue: using your cell phone to display an airline boarding pass. The paper passes have had scannable barcodes for some time now and on my last flight I actually did ask if my phone could be scanned since I had an image of my boarding pass on it. No such luck as I was told the paper passes were required for security reasons.

Continental wants to change that by scanning the barcodes right from your phone's display; a process that's currently in test. From the USA Today picture shown, it appears that the airline is using QR codes as opposed to the traditional UPC-type codes, but there aren't any technical details to indicate if this is correct. Regardless of the method, this could save a bunch of time and paper. I lost count of how many times I've awakened in the middle of the night to print a boarding pass as soon as possible, which is normally 24 hours prior to the flight time. Having an electronic boarding pass for download or in e-mail could net me some more sleep! ;)

(via Gizmodo)

Comments

[Edgar Fong]

Won't work because the TSA requires your boarding pass, and they mark it up both at the begining of the scanning area and after one walks through the metal detector. They won't like not marking up the PDA.

[James Kendrick]

Can you imagine approaching the gate and your phone battery dies?