Ah! The convenience of online ticketing, just choose your most convenient flight plans pay online via credit card and now look for a printer to print the e-ticket. Now if you're like me more often than not, I find myself running late. I can't tell you how many times I've broken into a cold sweat sitting in the back seat of a taxi trying to get through the Midtown tunnel at rush hour to make my flight out of JFK. Cell phones are being used in Japan to pay for soft drinks from automatic vending machines; well if it works for them then soon we'll be getting our boarding pass on our mobile phones too. Continental is testing a new system that allows people checking in via their cell phone to get their boarding pass sent directly to their phones. The electronic boarding pass, which has an encrypted two-dimensional bar code, can be used instead of a paper boarding pass to get through airport security and to board planes. The TSA has been working with Continental since December to test the new electronic boarding pass. Continental is only using the new boarding pass technology on nonstop domestic flights out of its hub in Houston. But the airline will likely expand the service to other airports later this spring. A mobile check-in system also has other benefits. For example, airlines can communicate directly with passengers about on-board services, provide information about baggage pickup, allow passengers to upgrade or change seating, check standby status, and help rebook canceled or delayed flights directly from their cell phones.

Two things that come to my mind are one that the mobile phone is the most stolen/ misplaced object in the world right now how earth would we get on a flight we loose the mobile in the washroom or worse if the battery dies? What about when a Trojan attacks my Smartphone and it hangs as I show my phone to the authorities? Better iron out those glitches before fully upgrading or eradicating the printed pass.

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