Paperless boarding passes on your PDA!

If you're like me and travel for business on a fairly regular basis you've likely gotten hooked first on the self-serve kiosks at the airport then on the web check-in (where you were able to login from home or the office via a web browser and print your ticket). Great news the next generation has finally started to arrive for North American airline carriers - wireless check-in. I must say that I'm excited to this mobile check-in feature on my Blackberry. The outbound trips are usually no problem since I have access to a browser and printer. The issue was always the return trip where I didn't have access to a computer and printer.

Air Canada started the trend basically you point your Blackberry or other wireless PDA at their mobile web portal and login just as you would at your computer or the self-serve kiosk. Here is the link on how it works and checkout this page for the initial limitations.

Now Contintental Airlines is conducting a three month test to evaluate the system prior to further roll-outs.

UPDATE - I had the opportunity on Friday to test Air Canada's paperless boarding pass delivered to my Blackberry and all I can say is FANTASTIC. For those times when you're running late on getting to your flight this tip can save you precious minutes. What happens is that you point the browser on your Blackberry or wireless PDA to mobile.aircanada.ca then follow the steps. If you're used to using the web check-in on a Mac/PC it will be very familiar as it follows the same steps with the pages simplified for a mobile device. At the end of the process you are sent two emails: 1) a confirmation, and 2) the boarding pass with a link to the bar-code. To save yourself time load the bar-code (for good measure save the image to the device - just in case) then leave the bar-code up on your screen. When you arrive at the security an agent will ask for your boarding pass and confirm it via a handheld scanner. When you're ready to board the plane same thing the gate agent simply scans the bar-code on your Blackberry. While the Internet experience on EDGE Blackberry's remains pathetic you can actually use it to login. My view is that this process is only going to get better going forward - enjoy and safe travels.