Airplane boarding passes will increasingly be electronic bar codes that passengers display on cell phones and personal digital assistants instead of paper documents, airline and government officials say. The Transportation Security Administration, after testing paperless boarding passes at a few airports to make sure they are secure, plans a nationwide expansion in the next year, said spokesman Christopher White. Delta Air Lines, which uses paperless boarding passes at New York’s LaGuardia Airport, plans to expand them soon to Atlanta, Orlando and Salt Lake City, a spokeswoman said. Alaska Airlines just started using paperless boarding passes at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport and could expand next year to Los Angeles, Anchorage and Portland, Ore.
The boarding passes are e-mailed to a passenger’s cell phone or PDA and appear onscreen as a bar code. At security checkpoints, a TSA screener scans the code with a $1,000 handheld device, which displays a passenger’s name and flight information for comparison to a passenger ID. Passengers can still use traditional paper boarding passes. Paperless boarding passes are expanding overseas, as well. (USA Today)
