Dear Airlines: This Is What Your Boarding Passes Should Look Like | Hacker News Reader

Dear Airlines: This Is What Your Boarding Passes Should Look Like

wired.com

There's a few things I would need to see before I'm more convinced.

I believe one of the times that boarding cards have a smaller departure time than boarding time is because people are looking for something that looks like a time. If the largest, most visible number is the boarding time, then it's much more likely that they will be there on time. Especially if the gate closes 5-10 minutes before the actual departure time. But the examples have the boarding time in color, while the departure time is in black, so I suspect more people will look towards the departure time, and end up delaying the flight more often.

The concept of "boarding priority" depends on flight. I've been on many flights where we all load into a bus, which takes us to the plane. There is no priority for that case, so I assume that that would be missing for those. Will the [1|2|3|4] be on every boarding card, as part of the pre-printed background, or will it only be printed for those flights with distinct boarding groups?

The depiction of the seat location needs some additional iconography for wide-body (which middle seat? which side of the aisle? which aisle), and for the 747 and 380 with double decks. Since the number of seats per row can change, will this have to be coded to the specific row and configuration of airplane? Since if it shows the aisle of 3 seats but there are only 2 then it could be confusing.

Why does it say "Where's my seat?" but also "Your flight"? Why the change in person?

The boarding cards are designed with color printers in mind. For example, the KLM boarding time is in blue as is the start/end airport codes. For Lufthansa it's in yellow. Currently the airlines can use black ink printers. How much more expensive will it be to print color, and is the extra cost worthwhile?

A boarding pass should look like - a phone app. Screw the paper. I want info I can use, when I need it, on my person without another damn scrap of paper to keep track of.

Recently I went to Zombie Burger (Des Moines, I recommend it) - instead of some flashing pager gadget they just texted me when my table was ready. That's the way to go.

Using SMS/Text messages would be great idea if they were reliable. There are no delivery guarantees or confirmation of delivery. You will be upset when your carrier delays delivering a message for 30 minutes and your table is given someone else. A sender gets no indication a message hasn't been delayed or even delivered.

Also, lets say you are on vacation in a foreign country and the only way to know when your table is ready is to get a message. Good luck with that! I've had bad experiences where ~10% of messages sent to foreign (different +NNN) mobile numbers are never received.

Apple's iMessage has much better delivery properties, but it is limited to iOS to iOS.

One more point: ever been in a rush and.. your phone is out of battery? What now?

Maybe in Silicon Valley. In Des Moines, not so much a problem.

Hear, hear! Not necessarily these, but let's drag the airlines kicking and screaming into the 21st century...

In the 21st century we have our boarding passes on our smartphones and when the gate changes, or the flight is delayed, we get an instant update.

Yes, I understand that many people don't have smartphones, but that'll be just one more reason to get one.

Let's spend our time making the smart phone app even better. Guide us to our gate, connecting flight, baggage pickup, etc.

Not everyone can afford a smartphone. Nor the expensive data plan that goes with it.

They probably don't fly that often either. It's probably better to aim for your target audience.

Anyway, some smartphones are free on a plan. It's that data plan, which we would hope will drop in price. Personally, I'd like to see WiFi "everywhere" so we can eliminate the data plans.

Or for an unusual 20th century to the boarding pass problem - don't have one. For a while you could walk aboard your People Express flight and pay after the plane had taken off.

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