United Brings Paperless Boarding Passes to DIA

A SmartPhone and other smart phone is required

I don't have a SmartPhone or iPhone or PDA. I have a SimplePhone, also known as CheapPhone with a CheapCallingPlan, so this news doesn't apply to me. But for others, United's introduction of paperless boarding passes at Denver International Airport is relevant. United isn't the only airline and DIA isn't the only airport, but DIA is my airport and I fly United a lot.

It works like this: Passengers can check in at an electronic kiosk that rather than spewing out a paper boarding pass, sends a message to the one will be sent to Internet-enabled cell phones. The message includes a bar code that security screeners and gate attendants are able to scan -- in theory anyway, unless or until there's a bug.

This system doesn't get around the Transportation Security Agency requirement of showing an actual government-issued photo ID to the screener. United intentionally introduced this innovation at spring break time, when many young people who live and breathe by their cell phones are traveling. Click here for a list of 43 other US airports (plus Frankfurt, Germany) where paperless boarding passes were being used before they came to DIA; others will surely follow. Alaska Airlines, Continental, Delta and others offer paperless boarding passes too. Some see it as a convenience or at least an inevitable technological advance, but I see it as substituting one impersonal boarding-pass procedure for another. And unless they're working while flying, passengers will probably pull out their Kindlesor other paperless books and do some inflight reading.