Supplemental Boarding Processing (With iPad)
Oct 30, 2018, 6:29 pm
#1
Original Poster
Join Date: Mar 2016
Location: OR,ID, NV
Programs: AS 75K, DL PM
Posts: 282
Supplemental Boarding Processing (With iPad)
Just boarded in Boise. According to the gate agent they now have to scroll through the manifest list on the iPad to mark a person boarded. No scanning devices or tickets. All gate agent touch screen glory. I will see how the rest of the boarding process go tonight. Wanted to see if the rest of the community has experienced this.
Oct 31, 2018, 8:09 am
#4
Join Date: Nov 2010
Programs: AS MVPG, HH Diamond
Posts: 232
If they don't use tickets do they ask for your ID? Or are you saying they just look at the tickets but don't scan them? Just wondering how they tell you're the one who is supposed to be getting on the flight.
Oct 31, 2018, 8:54 am
#5
Join Date: Mar 2016
Location: LAX
Programs: AS MVPG, IHG Diamond Elite
Posts: 1,445
I've seen them using the iPad for boarding before, but they were able to use the camera to scan boarding passes. I overheard the GA talking to someone from IT about how much better/easier it was to use. Imagine they're piloting some way to use these, but seems like scrolling to find each pax would take longer than scanning the old way?
Oct 31, 2018, 9:24 am
#7
Join Date: Aug 2000
Location: Seattle, WA
Programs: Alaska 100K - MM, defender of shoes on the carpeted bulkhead 4ever, AA LT PLT, Hyatt Glob, HH Dia
Posts: 7,446
This is akin to having folks bag their own groceries in their weirdly shaped canvas bags etc, it will gum up the process and make things take a long time. Then again, I've been proven wrong on more than one occasion.
Oct 31, 2018, 10:16 am
#8
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: Seattle, WA
Programs: AS MVPG, 1MM
Posts: 377
They used the iPad on a flight I was taking from SEA to DCA but the camera was scanning the boarding pass. Perhaps there was a problem with the camera and they had to do it manually. Haven't had this on any other flights I have taken this past month.
Oct 31, 2018, 10:35 am
#9
Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: SW WA
Posts: 3,886
I wonder if this is somehow related to the (new, much slower) TSA machines. You don't hand the TSA agent a boarding pass at those machines. Instead, you hand them your ID and they run it through some system that searches for you and your flight. It's possible we're moving towards a boarding pass-free environment.
Oct 31, 2018, 11:57 am
#10
Join Date: Jun 2015
Location: Seattle, WA
Programs: Alaska Airlines
Posts: 659
I can't imagine scrolling through a list on an iPad is faster than scanning the ticket/phone. I mean, even with the iPad they must be looking at the ticket to confirm right?
Manually reading the ticket, then looking up the pax, can't be faster than scanning. Even if quite a few people do have challenges scanning their digital boarding pass properly.
Manually reading the ticket, then looking up the pax, can't be faster than scanning. Even if quite a few people do have challenges scanning their digital boarding pass properly.
Oct 31, 2018, 12:10 pm
#11
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: Kirkland, WA
Programs: AS 75K,UA Gold 1.6MM, Hilton Dia, Marriott LT Plat, Hyatt Glb, Natl Exec, Hertz 5*
Posts: 3,657
Fastest scanning I have seen is with Southwest where they have a camera pointed down and they just hold the BP several inches under it and it picks it up very quickly. The Alaska scanners have always been a little temperamental.
Oct 31, 2018, 3:09 pm
#14
Join Date: Apr 2014
Posts: 1,639
I've always found the Alaska scanners easier and quicker than Southwest. With Alaska it forces you to put your phone in the proper position; with Southwest you guess at where it should go below the scanner and move it around until it registers.
Oct 31, 2018, 7:36 pm
#15
Join Date: Dec 2011
Location: Pacific NW
Programs: AS MVPG, BAEC, SPG, Global Entry
Posts: 119
The gate agents were using iPads at KOA on Sunday night. At the time I thought they must have experienced a computer glitch and were using a backup method, which would have been fine. If it's a new way of doing things ... wow. It's pretty clunky, and it's going to make the C gates at SEA even worse.