Rethink the airline boarding pass (accepting limitations)

I think this redesign looks very nice, and I'd love to have this on my next flight.

But the redesign ignores a lot of the reality of actually using boarding passes. For example:

- These boarding passes contain a lot of info that the Airline doesn't actually know for many flights. (Terminal and Gate numbers aren't available for a lot of flights at the time the boarding pass is printed). Those fields will be blank, which won't help you "navigate the airport labyrinth".

- The barcode on this boarding pass is very small, much smaller than the other passes photographed. This will likely make it harder to scan (especially since these gates are often re-used, the glass on the scanners is often dirty/scratched). Difficulty scanning these could slowly lead to increased frustration with flight attendants who have to scan a couple thousand of these, by hand, every single day.

- Color. Your boarding pass has it. Normal ones (often) don't. Even the passes you photographed are missing color printing. So these nice weather icons aren't going to look nearly as nice if you are truly adding "no new printers", as the page describes.

Again, I love the idea. But I think the design would be better served by a more careful observation of airports and air travel.

Again. It's like people have Photoshop/Illustrator and Helvetica and get an itch to either redesign boarding passes or Craigslist.

Pretty and some good thoughts (like the passport integration, though not relevant for domestic U.S. flights), but the same limitations always pop up (carrier independence, legacy printer hardware, etc.).

Apparently smartphone ticketing doesn't exist in the EU, yet, though. I can't remember the last time I had a paper ticket.