Friday, September 21, 2007

Air Canada Can Now Send a Boarding Pass to Your Mobile Phone

Did you know that you can now check-in for an Air Canada flight using your mobile phone, and receive a boarding pass in the form of a text message? Yep. Just show airport security the SMS, and proceed to baggage check and the screening area.

Air Canada says that most new mobile devices are compatible with the 2-D barcode technology required for the service to work. All you need to do is log onto http://www.mobile.aircanada.com/ from the device, and enter your details: name, destination, and credit card, Aeroplan, or booking reference number. If your flight qualifies for an electronic boarding pass, you simply enter your mobile phone number, and voila! Here comes your boarding pass via SMS!

The service is now available for all domestic Canadian and international Air Canada and Jazz flights. It's oddly not available for U.S. destinations.

This sounds really neat, but I hope it actually works without hassle. I also wonder how easy it would be for someone to duplicate an SMS boarding pass in order to get through security. How does the security officer verify that the SMS is legit and not a bogus copy? It's worth noting that I tried to access the Web address listed above and it doesn't seem to be functioning. I hope that's not an indication of how well the service will work in the long run!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The link you posted for the Air Canada mobile site is incorrect. The correct link is:
http://mobile.aircanada.com (no www).

Cheers.

Marketnews - Christine Persaud said...

Hi anonymous,

Thank you for clarifying, and providing the proper link/ The press announcement I received on this new service actually cited the incorrect address, which is where I got it from! The lesson of the day for Air Canada's PR department: proofreading should never, ever be overlooked!

Thanks again, anonymous. If you've tried out the service yourself, we'd love to hear your feedback!