American’s Mobile Boarding Passes
When I checked into my American Airlines flight on Monday, it offered me the chance to mail the boarding pass to a bunch of different places.
But what was interesting was that there was an additional field that was shown but disabled. This was the option to mail the boarding pass to my mobile device.
And this morning, I checked in for another flight (yes, I spend more time at airports than anywhere else — welcome to the story of my life). However, I now noticed the ability to mail the boarding pass to my mobile device. Of course, being the geek that I am, I had to give it a go.

The TSA checkpoint was a breeze — they have a little reader that goes green when you run it through. And the agent at the other end of the metal detector didn’t even want to see it — he just asked me to put it through the x-ray screener. Of course, I’ve heard all kinds of stories — some TSA agents step through, see the phone, then ask you to run the phone through x-ray; others just ask you to hand the phone over to them, and then let you walk through.
And the American boarding gates also have readers, similar to the ones that the TSA have.
It is almost surreal, and I for one welcome the paperless tickets. Welcome to the future — there may not be any flying cars, but there certainly is an easier way to go around in flying planes.
Reality Update
So, at the boarding gate, the person looks at my phone and goes, “Uh oh… oh no!” And then, of course, she asks me to scan the phone, and it doesn’t work. She asks me if I have a paper ticket (which I didn’t). At which point, she sighs and asks me for my name and searches for my reservation, and manually lets me in. Well, nobody said the future is perfect.
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