Telling More Than Time: Flight Notifications From Your Wrist
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With the Apple Watch release set for April 24, companies who want to be seen as early adopters have little over a month to fine-tune their apps. Air New Zealand, British Airways, easyJet and Air Canada have already announced their apps, claiming they will enhance PaxEx and offer “flight notifications at-a-glance.”
Whereas previous airline apps offered the novelty of booking flights, checking-in, selecting seats and receiving alerts from a mobile device, (not much different from the desktop experience), the Apple Watch shows potential to advance these abilities with real-time data, indoor positioning technology (iBeacon) and mobile payment options (Apple Pay) that would make navigating an airport and paying for a sandwich hands-free tasks.
As one user of the app for mobile phones put it, “The only problem I’d like to see improved is the effort it takes to open the app and get my ticket/barcode out to scan… It doesn’t sound like a big problem until you try to do it with bag, newspaper and coffee in hand.”
In addition to boarding calls and departure countdowns, Air New Zealand will continue their popular coffee-ordering app on the Apple Watch. EasyJet aims for a one-stop approach with weather forecasts, currency exchange rates and share buttons while keeping accessibility in mind by launching its app in English, French, German, Italian and Spanish.
Despite the hype, the Apple Watch is not the first foray into wearable technology for the PaxEx market. Vueling, airberlin and Iberia have experimented with wearable boarding passes with smartwatches from Samsung, Sony and Pebble. What Apple has, is a loyal fan base and a proven record of innovative products that have become best-sellers despite initial scepticism. Big names like Google and Motorola are said to follow soon with their own smartwatches, and according to SITA’s 2014 Passenger IT Trends Survey, 76 percent of travelers carry a mobile device, compared to the average of 40 percent for the general population – a sign that this trend could catch on with smartwatches.