TSA, Continental Add Paperless Boarding At LaGuardia

The Transportation Security Administration in conjunction with Continental Airlines today launched paperless boarding pass capabilities at New York's LaGuardia Airport. LaGuardia is the tenth airport to host the service that allows passengers to use a bar-coded image delivered electronically to a handheld device in lieu of a paper boarding pass.

Today's launch also marks Continental's eighth sponsorship of the program at a U.S. airport. The carrier already has worked with TSA to test the offering at airports in Houston, Washington, D.C., Newark, Boston, Austin, San Antonio and Cleveland. Other carriers, including Alaska Airlines, Delta Air Lines and Northwest Airlines are piloting the technology at other airports, from Seattle to Indianapolis.

The International Air Transport Association last year initiated a global standard that lets airlines offer consistent mobile phone checkin and other bar-coded boarding pass options. IATA in an update this month said all airlines are expected to be bar-code-boarding-pass capable by the end of the year, with full bar code usage—including paper-based and electronic formats—by the end of 2010. IATA said 176 airlines already have implemented the IATA standard bar coded boarding pass. TSA in a statement today said its paperless boarding pass trials comply with IATA standards.

In an interview with Business Travel News earlier this month, administrator Kip Hawley said TSA is determined to move forward with a broader rollout of paperless boarding passes. "We see tremendous opportunity in using this technology," he said. "It still is in a pilot mode, but it's worth noting that IATA has publicly announced their encryption standards, which we need. We need to have one encryption standard for all airlines. A number of airlines were waiting on the standard, and now with an international standard, that may open up the market even more. It's safe to say we would move at the pace of the airlines."