Example of an Alaska Airlines boarding pass on a mobile phone. Photo from AlaskaAir
I love technology and am excited when new gadgets come out that help passengers. When the e-podiums and checking in online were an option, I was one of the first to use them. However, there is one piece of technology I haven’t been so quick to start using: electronic boarding passes. Although the technology has been around for a while, I have been avoiding using it. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust the technology, I didn’t trust the training of the people who had to scan it.
On a recent Alaska Airlines flight from Los Angeles (LAX) to Seattle (SEA) I decided to give it a shot. Did it work? Well I made it on the plane, but I am going to go with “no.” Getting the mobile boarding pass was pretty easy using Alaska’s iPhone app. Checked in and had my boarding bar code on my phone to use with security and the gate agent.
Since security was up an escalator in my terminal at LAX a TSA employee was there to check my boarding pass at the bottom of the escalator and another at the top before actually being screened. The first TSA guy just kind of looked at my phone, and said go ahead. He looked confused, but maybe because he was only looking at the bar code. He didn’t look at my name or flight information since you have to scroll down on my phone to see that.
I got to the second TSA person and you could tell she wasn’t happy I was holding my phone. With a big sigh she picked up the scanner, turned it on and “beep” scanned my phone. This process took about three times longer than if she just looked at my paper ticket, stamped it and let me proceed. However faking a paper boarding pass is quite easy — not as easy as faking a bar code.
Next was the tricky part. It was boarding time and the gate agent needed to scan my electronic boarding pass. I held out my phone and without hesitation she told me that my phone wouldn’t scan and I needed to go get a boarding pass. Now I had a dilemma. I could give up, keep the line moving and get a paper boarding pass at the gate or do my best to get on board with my phone’s while annoying the passengers in line behind me. Since I knew I would be writing up a blog on this, I wanted to get on the plane with my phone (sorry to the people behind me, but we still left 15min early).
At first I asked if I could try to get it to scan. Being a bit nervous for holding up the line, I wasn’t able to get it to scan. Then I asked her if she could just read my boarding pass and seat number off my phone, like she would if a paper boarding pass wouldn’t scan. She agreed and I was on my way on the plane feeling a bit embarrassed.
I spoke with Alaska Airlines about my experience and Jeff Butler, Alaska’s vice president of customer service-airports explained to me, “Our experience rolling out the e-boarding pass hasn’t been unlike other carriers using the same technology – we’ve had mixed success but we’ve learned a lot. About 1,500 people use the e-boarding pass each month and we’ve heard positive feedback and also see areas for improvement.” Talking about my issue I ran into, Butler told me, “The particular issue you had scanning the boarding pass should be resolved by the end of the year. In the coming year, we will be upgrading our gate scanners which will improve the scanning of the boarding pass and we are already looking at ways to improve the user functionality.”
I have been hearing similar stories from other travelers, but it is nice to see that Alaska knows there are some issues and are working to resolve them. Thing is, I have no doubt e-boarding passes will be the future. Although I didn’t have the best experience, I will keep trying and I suggest you do as well. The more we do it, the more airlines will learn from issues. Just remember to have a back up boarding pass in your pocket, at least for the time being.
If you are flying today or in the future, you might want to double check that your ticket has all the new Secure Flight information required by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). This means your ticket must have your name, date of birth and gender that matches your state issued identification.
I am sure you are aware of the TSA’s watch list. This is a big list with a lot of names of people that shouldn’t be flying or need to have a special screening. Previously airlines have been responsible for checking passenger’s names on the watch list and now that will fall to the TSA. There have also been a lot of mistakes with the list, causing frustration for many Americans.
Of course in the name of making us all safer than we already are (yes there is a bit of sarcasm there), the TSA is upgrading their watch list. Most of these changes you won’t notice, unless your boarding pass doesn’t match your ID. Do not worry, if you bought your ticket in the last year, you should be fine. Most airlines have been collecting Secure Flight Information for a while now.
“Delta began requesting Secure Flight data from customers on August 15, 2009. As of June 12, 2010, passengers were required to provide the information,” Susan Elliott with Delta communications told me. When asked what will happen with passengers without Secure Flight information, she explained, “The TSA is requiring the information for all passengers as of November 1 and customers that have not provided their full name, gender and date of birth at least 72 hours in advance may have their reservation canceled.”
It might be worth your time to double check via your online reservation. Although the TSA won’t let you change your reservation and add the additional information 72 hours before your flight, you can still make a brand new reservation up until the time the flight leaves.
The TSA isn’t totally clear how off your name has to be before not letting you fly. On their TSA blog they talk about what will happen if names don’t match, but they come far from being obvious. What if my ticket has David vs Dave. What if you have a hyphenated last name? How about if you have many different names? In what situations will the TSA let you fly and in which will they not?
One of the big issues I have had with the TSA is consistency. Different locations do not enforce the rules the same and how can we expect this to be any different? What if the TSA gives you authorization at one airport, but you can’t make it home from another?
Will we be safer because of these changes? No, I do not think so. Might there be less people being harassed because of errors with the watch list? Probably. Will there be more people harassed and inconvenienced because of name issues? I am guessing so.
The Boeing 747-8 Intercontinental is one beautiful airplane. Boeing recently tweeted a video of the first 747-8I RC001 being moved to her final assembly position and I just had to share. The 747-8I is the biggest commercial airliner that Boeing has ever made and it might turn out to be my favorite.
Dutch Antilles Express Fokker 100 (PJ-DAB) landing at St. Maarten.
Using this photo is not really fair. Almost any livery is going to look good landing at St. Maarten. When you take a look at her livery on the not-so-exciting ground you can see it really is nothing special.
Dutch Antilles Express (DAE) is a small airline based in Curacao, Netherlands Antilles. The airline only has a fleet of five: three ATR 42s and two Fokker 100s.
Even though the airline started back in 2005, their about us section of their website still has, “under construction,” which is not very re-assuring.
As I am sure you know, Southwest is try to purchase AirTran. This is a very interesting process since we are looking at two low cost carriers becoming one and Southwest taking on a new aircraft type: the Boeing 717.
There are still a lot of questions out there about the merger and I was hoping to get some more insight while hanging out with Southwest in Dallas for their yearly media day. Unfortunately at this point there aren’t a heck of a lot more answers, but I at least have a few more pieces of information.
The big thing to remember is that Southwest and AirTran are still separate companies and competitors. Even though it looks like this buy-out should go through with no issue, AirTran is not about to give up all their secrets until the deal is final. This doesn’t mean that Southwest isn’t working hard already, they just don’t have all the answers right now. Southwest currently has 30 different teams in seven different categories to prepare for the new larger company.
The addition of the Boeing 717 to Southwest’s all Boeing 737 fleet is something that definitely piques my curiosity. Southwest stated they feel this will be one of the smoothest transitions. AirTran already has a good system with their 717 and 737 aircraft and they plan to keep AirTran’s current system of organizing the different planes.
When asked about the Boeing 717 and Boeing 737-500, which are designed to serve similar markets, Southwest stated that the 737-500’s will be coming off lease in 2013-2015. At that time, they will want to have a newer small aircraft to replace them. They made it sound like the Boeing 717 would do that perfectly, but I am not so sure. I wonder if the Boeing 717 is the right aircraft type to provide smaller markets. It seems it might be beneficial for Southwest to look at not being an “all Boeing” airline and start looking at Bombardier C-series aircraft.
Another big interest is Southwest being able to start flying out of Atlanta (ATL). They seem very excited to get AirTran’s slots and are already planning to serve at least 24 new destinations from ATL that AirTran doesn’t currently serve. Southwest stated they aren’t looking to directly complete with any airlines in ATL (aka Delta), but am guessing there is more talk of competition behind closed doors. Southwest explained they hope they could offer airfares as much as 40% lower to ATL than the competition (aka Delta). Now that sounds like competitive talk to me. It looks like ATL will become quite important to Southwest. They stated that Atlanta might quickly become the largest city in their network, flying up to 2,000,000 passengers to the airport.
Some media voiced their concern about loyal AirTran passengers who are used to Business Class, Wi-Fi on all their flights and assigned seats. This is a big change to transition to all economy, Wi-Fi on some aircraft (will be all by mid-2013) and open seating. Southwest didn’t seem too concerned. They stated they know there are quite a few loyal Southwest passengers who would love to fly them into ATL, but just can’t do it right now. They also plan to educate fliers to promote Southwest’s unique brand of service.
Southwest stated that they aren’t looking to eliminate AirTran with the buy out, but that they hope to learn from them in every way they can to make a bigger and better airline. With Southwest announcing they will be flying into larger airports like Newark on top of buying out AirTran, it is anyone’s guess what Southwest might do next. There was talk of flying longer distances possibly Hawaii (which was mentioned half a dozen times), South America and more. I say… game on.
