I’m off to Houston, Texas, next week. I’m going to the Internet Retailer M-Commerce Forum and I’m very much looking forward to that. My intent is to speak to as many participants as I can to find out how the field of M-Commerce is moving in the States.
My airline of choice is British Airways. Someone asked me why, the other day, pointing out that they very much enjoy Virgin Atlantic. I’ve flown with Virgin now and again but my heart remains with British Airways — and here’s the rub, if I sit and examine why I feel this way, it’s primarily because of their iPhone application.
I have always found their staff attentive, professional and kind — and I do like how their pilots tend to sound serious and competent. I don’t need jokes at 50,000ft. Give me the calm confidence of a British Airways pilot.
Anyway it’s all about the app for me. From the mobile app, the rest of the experience unfolds before me. The fact that I can check-in for a flight whilst in the cab on the way to the airport is an utter joy — and the ability to then be able to call-up my boarding pass and walk straight past the legions of confused and stressed folk checking in on the machines, ahh, pleasure. It makes the business of flying that bit nicer for me.
I really do miss the app experience when I’m flying with other airlines — for instance to Cork recently with Are Lingus. I had to dick about with an A4 piece of paper as my boarding pass. Annoying. Very annoying.
More and more airlines are beginning to get with the programme. However I think it’s fair to say that in terms of integration, British Airways are very much the pioneers. Is that right? I know Lufthansa have been doing a lot in this area. I do enjoy the fact that British Airways have managed to spread mobile boarding passes to a veritable ton of airports now. I should check out the other airline mobile offerings.
Meanwhile today I got my flight details through from the very nice lady who booked the travel. She asked for my executive card number before she did the booking. That was useful because I checked earlier and — boom — the flight is already registered there in the app.
Love it.
(If you’ve had good mobile experiences with other airlines do let me know.)
You can pick up the BA iTunes app at this link.
