If you fly Continental airlines in the next three months, and have a connection in Houston, you'll likely be able to take part in a pilot program that allows passengers to board flights using just a cellphone or PDA instead of a paper boarding pass. The three-month pilot program launched Tuesday at Houston's Intercontinental Airport. If the test is successful, the program could expand nationwide.
Instead of using paper boarding passes, the airlines will send a special bar code to the cell phone or PDA of each passenger. The bar code will store the passenger's name and flight information. A TSA working will scan the bar code with a special handheld device. Passengers will still need to show a photo ID to board the plane.
"We have been in favor of this for a long time and had fairly consistent dialogue with TSA on our desire to do this," Mark Bergsrud, a Continental executive, told the Houston Chronicle. "We were ready technically and we are pretty nimble with our ability to develop software and test it."
Sounds interesting.
(Photo by TSA)
Instead of using paper boarding passes, the airlines will send a special bar code to the cell phone or PDA of each passenger. The bar code will store the passenger's name and flight information. A TSA working will scan the bar code with a special handheld device. Passengers will still need to show a photo ID to board the plane.
"We have been in favor of this for a long time and had fairly consistent dialogue with TSA on our desire to do this," Mark Bergsrud, a Continental executive, told the Houston Chronicle. "We were ready technically and we are pretty nimble with our ability to develop software and test it."
Sounds interesting.
(Photo by TSA)
