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Has Mobile Ticketing Finally Landed?

Lufthansa, the German flag carrying airline, have successfully launched a range of Mobile services. The suite of mobile applications includes booking, ticketing, a replacement for boarding cards as well as marketing and information services. After an aborted take-off, Lufthansa's mobile check-in service has established itself with an increase of 30% in airport check-ins using a mobile ticket. They're enjoying a surge of business customers who are now switching to Lufthansa from other airlines because of the increased convenience that mobile ticketing can bring.

Lufthansa's services, designed in collaboration with Clanmo, a mobile apps and website developer, has actually been around since 2005, but recent enhancements to the website and new mobile applications has seen a significant increase in take up of the services. A new iPhone application has made using the service intuitive and this is being ported to other touch-screen based mobile devices, proving my old adage that the growth of mobile apps is about usability - if it's clunky to use it negates any of the convenience benefits.

The applications allow you to book your flights via the mobile app or mobile web portal, select your seats on the plane, download your boarding pass to your phone, check in via the mobile or using your mobile ticket at the check-in desks, use your mobile as your boarding pass and manage your air miles account. Other airlines are also working on similar services with KLM being one.
So what might stall mobile ticketing in the airline industry? Security is a big concern, but is it any easier to abuse a ticketing, check-in and boarding system that uses a mobile device than one that uses paper, especially with the widespread adoption of online check-in anyway. In fact the mobile device could enhance the online check-in security by perhaps allowing two-factor authenticaiton (Chip & Pin) or more simplistically a photo of the passenger could be married to the boarding card for human or machine recognition matching.
Another potential challege is the scanning of devices. If barcodes are used then a simple hand-held scanner could be used, but not all scanners can read all phones, especially the older phones. Once NFC is ubiquitous (and I'm still predicting 2-3 years before we have sufficient numbers of NFC capable phones) then barcodes are defunct. That said, it wasn't all that long ago before there weren't sufficient numbers of people with fast internet connections and suitable printers to print online tickets/boarding passes.
With mobile cash and even mobile passports not too far away, I for one can't wait for the day I leave home heading for Stansted airport, in the dark at 4am in the morning. Though bleary eyed I can stumble down the drive and into my car safe in the knowledge that, providing I have my iPhone in my pocket I have everything I need to travel halfway around the world...

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