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Airlines allow pasngers to use mobile phone as ticket
So the paper ticket is dead, and a new move by Continental
Airlines could mean that even paper boarding pass may be the
next to go. The airline is currently testing out digital
boarding passes that lets you use your cell phone as a ticket.
Contintental's new system, which is being tested in Houston for
the next three months, sends you a digital two-dimensional bar
code, a square of pixels that represents your boarding info.
Just display that bar code on your cell phone's screen, then
pass the phone screen under the scanner and voila,
you're ready to board. You've also save a tree while managing to
reduce the number of things you have to remember to pack for
your trip by one.
Continental is the first U.S. airline to test out cell phone
tickets, but other domestic carriers, including U.S. Airways and
Delta, are looking into the service.
Cell phones and bar codes are becoming quite the pair, with
Orange enabling European phones to serve up advertising based on
pictures of bar codes. That said, the whole bar code scanning
tech seems a bit quaint. Why can't we just move on to global
RFID tags already?