Paperless Check-In

According to Budget Travel, some airlines are using paperless check-in with passengers who have smart phones and PDAs.

It started with Continental Airlines. But others, such as British Airways, Delta, Northwest, Southwest, Alaska Airlines and Air Canada developing ways for customers to check-in for a flight, via Web-enabled devices such as iPhones and Blackberries.

Airlines are using similar, but not uniform, procedures. Delta scans the boarding pass directly from your mobile device. Register your cell phone number to receive a text message with a boarding pass bar code. Hold up the screen of your cell phone under the airport security scanner, rather than show a paper boarding pass. (As always, you have to present a government-issued photo identification too.) Delta is testing the service at LaGuardia Airport.

Similarly, passengers on American Airlines flying nonstop domestic flights from Chicago O'Hare, LAX and Orange County John Wayne Airport can check-in at AA.com and choose to receive an electronic boarding pass via e-mail, in the form of a two-dimensional bar code. In contrast, British Airways will fax the boarding pass, send it directly to an airport kiosk or check-in desk, or send it in an e-mail to be printed later.