Flying 2.0

Web 2.0 allows users to interact and collaborate with each other in a social media dialogue. Every Wednesday I will write a blog post about Web 2.0 related to a specific topic. This week it will be Web 2.0 and flying: Check in with your mobile phone!

Checking in for your flight anywhere and anytime. How? Simple, just use your mobile phone. The airlines do it all for you. Oh, and they even provide you with an electronic boarding pass.

The Transportation Security Administration, the federal agency that oversees security for airports, likes the electronic boarding passes too, because the two-dimensional bar codes are harder to forge than the one-dimensional bar codes that are used today on many tickets printed online.

Besides that an electronic boarding pass  is more safe, airlines can also communicate directly with passengers about on-board services, provide information about baggage pickup, allow passengers to upgrade or change seating, check standby status, and help rebook canceled or delayed flights directly from their cell phones.

All this sounds great for me and many other travelers who are busy. But for all these services to work as promised, indoor cell phone coverage will have to be beefed up in many airports. It also would not be wrong for the airports to add more power outlets. The worst thing that could happen is for my boarding pass to disappear before I can get on my flight because the battery on my cell phone died...

Until next time,

Eline Jansen, Mediaholic

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