The Chronicle‘s Bill Hensel Jr. reports that Continental Airlines and Bush Intercontinental Airport are beginning to test paperless boarding passes today:
Some Continental Airlines’ passengers leaving Houston will be the first in the nation to board flights without waving a paper boarding pass, as long as they have a cell phone handy.
A unique new check-in procedure using cell phones or personal digital assistants as boarding passes is being unveiled by Continental Airlines and the Transportation Security Administration at George Bush Intercontinental Airport today.
The three-month pilot program involves technology using encrypted bar codes on mobile device screens, something not being used anywhere else in the world, TSA official Melvin Carraway said.
“We have been in favor of this for a long time and had fairly consistent dialogue with TSA on our desire to do this,” said Mark Bergsrud, a senior vice president for Houston-based Continental. “We were ready technically and we are pretty nimble with our ability to develop software and test it.”
Carraway said the TSA, which has had a problem with people trying to use fraudulent paper boarding passes in the past, is confident the technology can’t be cracked.
While the technology geek in me likes the idea of paperless boarding passes for the sake of convenience, I’m not entirely reassured by TSA’s statement that the technology is invulnerable in terms of security (after all, this would be the same TSA that is ever vigilant against the threat of 5 ounces of shampoo making it into the airport, but that fares less well in stopping bombmaking materials during TSA security test runs). Still, I’m looking forward to giving the new system a try.
If anyone gets a chance to test it, please let us know about the experience!
