Vodafone offers Spanair customers mobile boarding service

At the start of this month, Spanair launched its new mobile boarding card service in partnership with Vodafone, which provides the mobile connectivity services.

Spanair thus becomes the first airline to offer its passengers this type of service, in the light of the recent publication by IATA of a mobile boarding standard based on two-dimensional codes. The Madrid-Bilbao route will launch this service up to the end of the year, at which point the company will begin rolling out the mobile boarding card on all its domestic routes.

Focusing primarily on business passengers, this innovative system facilitates receiving a Spanair boarding card via a multimedia message (MMS) sent to a mobile telephone. The multimedia message contains an image with a two-dimensional code (dot code) which transmits all the information necessary to execute automated boarding, as well as a text information section with all travel details. Thus, to obtain their boarding cards, passengers will just need to proceed to the special check-in desks and pass the code through a scanner.

To obtain their mobile boarding card, passengers will be required to check-in using the web-based check-in service at www.spanair.com, or by connecting to the internet via their mobiles via the new mobile check-in service at www.spanair.mobi, which will be launched in tandem with the mobile boarding card service. At the end of the process, the passenger is asked for his or her mobile number, to which Spanair will send the corresponding multimedia message (MMS) free of charge.

In order to use this system, passengers simply need to pass the code sent to their mobile through the scanners at Madrid and Bilbao airports. On doing so, they will obtain a paper receipt with which they will be able to pass through security and proceed to boarding.

Vodafone's director of innovation and business development, Pedro Fuertes, commented that "the mobile boarding card and, in general terms, ticketing systems based on mobile handsets, are further evidence that mobile telephones, in addition to facilitating voice-based communication, are making life easier for us by allowing for secure access to endless services, at any time and from anywhere".

Spanair piloted this system in June during the Vodafone innovation show, which also served as the launch for this new service. Pablo Sánchez, Director of E-Commerce at Spanair stated that "with this advance, Spanair is laying the foundations for implementation of a boarding card system in the near future that will be 100% paper-less; thereby ensuring greater passenger comfort and a substantial saving of time".

To obtain further information on the service, visit Spanair.com.