jrockway

I had the opposite problem. They always work at the TSA, they never work when boarding. And then I get a lecture from the GA about how it is somehow my fault. (Yeah, a barcode scanner designed to read barcodes from non-reflective paper is going to work on a glossy screen.)

So I just stick with the paper. It makes everyone a little less uneasy.

silam

I used it relatively frequently for a period, and never once had a problem with it at security. Like other readers have pointed out, you just put the phone (in my case a BlackBerry) down flat on the reader and the light goes green just like a ticket.

However at the gate it was a different story. Several times I was able to get it to work by slowly moving the angle. Some gate agents would try for a long period of time to get it work, and others would give it 2 or 3 seconds, then just manually enter it. At security I liked how it worked, but it seemed inconvinient at the gate. Because of the hassle of using it at the gate I eventually just stopped using it.

maledictis

The TSA's readers are battery operated and after a period of non-use, they switch themselves off to save power.

As a consequence, they're almost always off when one of the few pax using MBPs approach the TSA agent checking BPs in the security line. So you or the agent has to hit the switch and wait for the thing to boot up, which completely negates any time savings or convenience compared to printing a paper BP at home or at a kiosk at the airport.

It's a nice idea executed poorly.

aamilesslave

Huh? At LAX, all BPs, paper or electronic, are scanned by the TSA ID checker.

worldwide viking

LAX has a different procedure with TSA for mobile boarding passes. The idea was to test to see if scanning every boarding pass would take more or less time than eyeballing them. Scanning them is faster and with the new IATA standard for boarding passes that kicks in on 12/31/10, scanning is much more secure.

TSA is working hard on getting scanners to every checkpoint in the country. For various arcane reasons that I won't get into, the RFP process has been way more painful than it should have been. Once you can use an MBP on any airline at any checkpoint, it will become routine and the procedural problems will evaporate -- just as at the sites with heavy MBP use today it has become fairly smooth.

BTW, we're testing our iPhone app for the AA MBP -- saves the MBP automatically and displays it with one touch.

gamehendge2000

haven't tried this for AA, but when on Amtrak between BOS and NYC (the Eagle flight is not worth it for either the miles or the segments!), I can never ever get the Amtrak scanner to read the barcode off my phone. Always ended up needing to get a printout, and costing more time than saving. Assuming once you fold in a TSA security line, I'd be a lot happier with the piece of paper in my pocket

worldwide viking

The Amtrak set-up is a little different, in that the barcode reader on the kiosk aims the laser directly on the phone. TSA is, thanks to AA/DL/CO, using primarily flatbed scanners, which have much, much lower error rates. TSA does have a few handheld scanners in the field, but I seriously doubt that they will deploy more of those.

I've been doing a lot of testing with one of the flatbed vendors gunning for the TSA contract, and I have yet to experience an error. Lufthansa already has more than 10% of the boarding passes on mobile, so rest assured that the technology works.