Mobile Boarding Passes Take Off With 1200% Usage Increase In 2009
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]
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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.
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.
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 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.
@mark @ray My startup MogoTix is working on making mobile ticketing simple for everyone to use.
We hope to launch soon.
We are working on it. =]
There has been some trials recently.
http://bit.ly/bz9Yn2
[...] Apparrently this trend is really taking off. [...]
[...] Mobile Boarding Passes Take Off With 1200% Usage Increase In 2009 [...]
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.
actually IATA standard demand Aztec code and not any other variation.
@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
Trinity Mobile also works with rail and bus companies, and concert/club/festivals for mobile ticketing.
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.
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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.
Not one of the American companies offer this service on the iPhone from what I can tell. Such a shame.
i like this. really.
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And I hope this does not happen on that 24 hr travel day;)
you are getting me all cheery about virtual BP’s
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’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.
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/ .
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