After the Urban Airship and Alaska Air announcement during Google I/O, you might have seen this one coming. But now it’s been confirmed. Urban Airship is powering Alaska Airlines Passbook integration on iOS devices.
The upgraded Alaska Airlines iOS app available today will use Urban Airship’s PassTools solution to create and dynamically update Apple Passbook boarding passes. From the Alaska Airlines app or mobile website, travelers can now save their Alaska Airlines boarding pass to Passbook, which will automatically appear on their iOS device home screens on arrival at the airport. Any changes to seat assignments, gates and departure times are automatically updated on the displayed pass through PassTools’ API, making customers’ journeys easier, stress-free and more enjoyable.
“Alaska Airlines has a long history of innovation, including being the first airline in the U.S. to sell a ticket and check in a customer online,” said Curtis Kopf, VP of Customer Innovation, Alaska Airlines. “While we’ve enabled electronic boarding passes for some time through our own native apps, support for Apple Passbook will offer our customers additional mobile functionality guaranteed to make the travel experience even easier. This has been a big request from customers.”
No word yet on whether you will be able to order your free beer or wine from the iOS device.
For more information, see the Urban Airship press release on the Alaska partnership.
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The nice thing about Passbook—in my experience—is that it makes the boarding passes immediately accessible from the lock screen with one swipe. Rather than swiping, booting up the app, navigating to the boarding pass…
That and I always know where they are.
I always thought it was hooey until I actually started using it. Now, I’m a fan.
I”ve never used passbook as there hasn’t been much to use it on. Alas, i’m flying Alaska this Monday and going to give this a try. What I don’t get is what is the difference between having passbook as apposed to the Alaska app? I thought that Passbook would not need the Alaska app but it does. I can do everything from the Alaska app I would imagine i can do from Passbook. Seems redundant or am I missing something?