Alaska Airlines adds Apple Passbook support for boarding passes
Alaska Airlines on Thursday updated its official iPhone application to allow customers to access digital boarding passes through Apple's Passbook service.
The upgraded Alaska Airlines iOS application uses Urban Airship's PassTools solution to create Passbook boarding passes that can be dynamically updated with new seat assignments, flight times and airport gate numbers. Using either the application or the Alaska Airlines website, travelers can now save their boarding pass to Passbook, and the ticket will automatically appear on their iPhone lock screen once they arrive at the airport.
To use the new Passbook functionality, users simply load their boarding pass through the Alaska Airlines application. There, they are presented with a scannable QR code along with an "Add to Passbook" button that will generate a digital boarding pass in the iPhone's official Passbook application.
"While we?ve enabled electronic boarding passes for some time through our own native apps, support for Apple Passbook will offer our customers additional mobile functionality guaranteed to make the travel experience even easier," said Curtis Kopf, VP of Customer Innovation, Alaska Airlines. "This has been a big request from customers.?
The updated application also sends push messages to Alaska Airlines customers with real-time flight alerts and check-in reminders.
"The combination of push messaging and passes offer an easy and powerful solution to drive delightful customer experiences that earn their continued mobile loyalty," said Scott Kveton, co-founder and CEO of Urban Airship. "We've focused on making it easy for all businesses to create and manage Passbook passes, including the industrial strength security and scalability that enterprises require."
Passbook support can be found in version 2.6 of the official Alaska Airlines application, which is now available as a free download on the App Store. The software is a 7.8-megabyte download that requires iOS 5.0 or later, and it is optimized for the 4-inch display of the iPhone 5.
Launched with the release of iOS 6, Apple's Passbook allows users to store items like digital tickets, reward cards, and more. The feature has seen some uptake from a number of large service providers and venues.
While Apple hasn't offered any specifics on the adoption of Passbook since its launch, some of the largest Passbook partners have indicated initial success with the platform. For example, Major League Baseball said last year that Apple's Passbook accounted for 12 percent of the league's e-tickets during a trial run, leaving officials "floored" with the results and setting the stage for it to be accepted at 13 MLB stadiums in the 2013 season.
Data collected by marketing firm Vibes also noted that Starbucks has said about 20 percent of its active 7 million mobile payments users from around the world are now using Passbook. And the Sephora Beauty Inside card was added by more than 20,000 users within 24 hours of its launch.
The upgraded Alaska Airlines iOS application uses Urban Airship's PassTools solution to create Passbook boarding passes that can be dynamically updated with new seat assignments, flight times and airport gate numbers. Using either the application or the Alaska Airlines website, travelers can now save their boarding pass to Passbook, and the ticket will automatically appear on their iPhone lock screen once they arrive at the airport.
To use the new Passbook functionality, users simply load their boarding pass through the Alaska Airlines application. There, they are presented with a scannable QR code along with an "Add to Passbook" button that will generate a digital boarding pass in the iPhone's official Passbook application.
"While we?ve enabled electronic boarding passes for some time through our own native apps, support for Apple Passbook will offer our customers additional mobile functionality guaranteed to make the travel experience even easier," said Curtis Kopf, VP of Customer Innovation, Alaska Airlines. "This has been a big request from customers.?
The updated application also sends push messages to Alaska Airlines customers with real-time flight alerts and check-in reminders.
"The combination of push messaging and passes offer an easy and powerful solution to drive delightful customer experiences that earn their continued mobile loyalty," said Scott Kveton, co-founder and CEO of Urban Airship. "We've focused on making it easy for all businesses to create and manage Passbook passes, including the industrial strength security and scalability that enterprises require."
Passbook support can be found in version 2.6 of the official Alaska Airlines application, which is now available as a free download on the App Store. The software is a 7.8-megabyte download that requires iOS 5.0 or later, and it is optimized for the 4-inch display of the iPhone 5.
Launched with the release of iOS 6, Apple's Passbook allows users to store items like digital tickets, reward cards, and more. The feature has seen some uptake from a number of large service providers and venues.
While Apple hasn't offered any specifics on the adoption of Passbook since its launch, some of the largest Passbook partners have indicated initial success with the platform. For example, Major League Baseball said last year that Apple's Passbook accounted for 12 percent of the league's e-tickets during a trial run, leaving officials "floored" with the results and setting the stage for it to be accepted at 13 MLB stadiums in the 2013 season.
Data collected by marketing firm Vibes also noted that Starbucks has said about 20 percent of its active 7 million mobile payments users from around the world are now using Passbook. And the Sephora Beauty Inside card was added by more than 20,000 users within 24 hours of its launch.
Comments
The passbook feature is excellent. I cannot wait for more companies to use this and support it. There are ways for Apple to smooth out the overall integration but it is a great first step.
I have never gotten Passbook to work. It is a confusing mess.
I would love to use Passbook. But I have a iPad and not a iPhone and so there are parts of IOS I can't use. Dumb! Apple how about making all of IOS usable in the next update.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Slurpy
Apple needs to run promotions to motivate people to use passbook. It could be as simple as passbook coupons you can download from their website or store app that give discounts from the Apple store.
Mostly they need to keep bringing on board more and more Pasbook compatible service provider apps. AMTRAK was an early adaptor, some MLB ballparks support Passbook but not all...
Quote:
Originally Posted by jfc1138
The whole Passbook functionality is great. When travelling on AMTRAK (mainly when back east on the Northeast corridor, Washington D.C., Phila., NYC.> Mystic> Boston) having one less bunch of paper to keep track of is wonderful. I've always got my phone so I've always got my tickets and itinerary.
As much as I want to only use digital tickets, I still don't trust not carrying paper as a backup.
My son was traveling to Hawaii last year and had his boarding pass on his iPhone. He was very excited about being able to use it.
Unfortunately, when he got to the gate, he found out their scanner was broken. They sent everyone with digital passes waaaaaay down the terminal into a huge line, to check back in and get paper passes. It took him almost an hour, and he says he almost missed his flight.
Since then, he has ALWAYS carried paper as well.
The system is only as good as its weakest link.
It's a highly underrated and underutilized feature of iOS for which i blame Apple.
What have you tried to use it with? I can see how it's confusing in that it's not intuitive but I wouldn't call it a mess.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SolipsismX
Quote:
Originally Posted by SpamSandwich
I have never gotten Passbook to work. It is a confusing mess.
What have you tried to use it with? I can see how it's confusing in that it's not intuitive but I wouldn't call it a mess.
Oh, I have to agree with SpamSandwich on this one: it's a mess.
A really low-quality, not-terribly-intuitive-or-functional app from Apple.
Quote:
Originally Posted by anantksundaram
Oh, I have to agree with SpamSandwich on this one: it's a mess.
A really low-quality, not-terribly-intuitive-or-functional app from Apple.
Add me to the "It's a mess" group. This is a classic example of my expecting better of Apple when they designed this app.
I have a hard time using the term mess because I don't see a huge mess of poorly or partially add and thought-out features. What I see is a very focused concept that results in a highly spartan and therefore limited execution. A solution that isn't as instantly understood as it should be and therefore isn't adopted by vendors and customers in a Catch-22 scenario.
I personally use Passbook nearly every day and have been doing so since soon after it was released, but it needs more of everything to get great for the masses. In fact, I'd say it needs to be messier.
Should Apple be more agressive in micro-managing vendors apps? I thought that was a complaint already (too much interference).
I wish Passport was introduced into India, one of my irritation is when you going to enter any Indian airport, you have to show a paper flight Itinerary with identification before entering. I tried to use my iPad, but security said no, stating the e-mail could have been altered (lmao). At least with passport, the software show the airline, its symbol, the logo etc.
It is a pain in the ass and I was very happy traveling to Singapore and feeling like a normal person again, no paper flight Itinerary..Yeah!
Can't wait for my next assignment hopefully, be able to use Passport more.
Edit: At moment only use Passbook for Starwood Perferred Guest (SPG)