The large U.S. airlines are stepping up their efforts to cater to a broadening base of smartphone-toting travelers.
American and United last month both increased the number of U.S. airports where passengers can pass through security and board their flights using boarding-pass barcodes on their mobile devices.
In March, United introduced mobile boarding passes at 13 U.S. airports, including its five hubs, with plans to add five more within the next few weeks. American, which introduced the feature at eight U.S. airports in late 2008, added 19 more.
Continental, which started offering mobile boarding passes about a year before American, is enabled at 42 airports, while Delta offers the feature at 17 U.S. points.
Increased U.S. mobile boarding pass offerings have broadened as more carriers adopted the newer, so-called 2D boarding pass barcode standard in an effort to phase out the costlier and more labor-intensive magnetic-stripe pass.
Smartphone users who check in for their flights on airline websites can access and download their boarding passes to their mobile device. They then run the phone’s screen by the airline boarding pass scanners, because the smartphone barcodes match those created on paper passes.
Like creators of mapping, reference and reviews applications, U.S. airlines are looking to cater to iPhone, Droid and Blackberry users. About 240 million North Americans will purchase smartphones by 2013, up from about 60 million in 2008, according to Parks Associates, a research and consulting firm.
In addition to competing against Continental and Delta, United and American are playing catch-up to competitors from abroad. Air Canada started offering paperless boarding passes in September 2007, while Lufthansa started doing the same in early 2008.
Part of the delay in adopting mobile boarding passes in the U.S. might have stemmed from concerns on the part of the Transportation Security Administration, said Steve Lott, North American spokesman for IATA.
"TSA originally was a little leery of the mobile boarding pass option," said Lott, who said IATA’s role has been primarily to push for the 2D standard, and that once the airlines adopt it, they’re responsible for enabling the process of mobile boarding pass use. "There was a brief period where the TSA wanted to create its own barcode."
With the industry set to fully adopt the 2D standard by the end of the year, the mobile boarding pass option will become more of the norm. Southwest Airlines, for example, said it would adopt the practice once the standard is fully adopted.
Still, IATA hasn’t set any deadline on eliminating paper passes, Lott said.