Virgin America has unveilled a redesigned boarding pass designed to easily slip into a traveller's pocket.
Intended for printing at the office or home as part of online checkin, the single sheet folds down to a quarter of its full size while still retaining the key travel data on the front with the code needed for airport scanning of the pass on the back.
It's a very practical twist on the whole boarding pass 2.0 concept, which in recent years has seen several concepts offered to make the traditional boarding pass more user-friendly.
Read: Should airlines redesign your boarding pass to look like this?
But if you think a pocket-sized boarding pass is something, check out the Virgin America's new-look website which went live over the weekend.
It's still an 'under the radar' beta running alongside the much more staid virginamerica.com site, but is intended to make the online booking process easier, faster and 'fun-erer', Virgin America claims. “We make getting there fun. Why shouldn’t booking be fun too? With playful avatars, a sleek simple design, mood-lit inspired colours and a cheeky sense of humour, we’re the life of the airline industry website party." Click here for a quick walkthrough of the new site's design concepts. Follow Australian Business Traveller on Twitter: we're @AusBT David Flynn is the Editor-in-Chief of Executive Traveller and a bit of a travel tragic with a weakness for good coffee, shopping and lychee martinis.
QFF
12 Apr 2013
Total posts 1560
Long overdue - current style is way too uncomfortable!
28 Oct 2011
Total posts 645
wow..have we really become that stupid/lazy that we need to be shown how to fold an A4 piece of paper ...ive been floding my A4 copies of my airlines boarding pass..showing the info required for boarding... for years...without any issues!!
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
17 Aug 2012
Total posts 2199
The trick here is that you don't need to unfold it.
28 Oct 2011
Total posts 645
as i said...i fold in a manner that shows the info on the paper required to board without unfolding...and still ends up being the same size as this 'innovation'...this 'innovation' still requires folding!!! ... but now we are told 'how to do it' with perforations!! lol
28 Oct 2011
Total posts 645
and as you can see on the video...he still folds the paper twice to achieve the desired 'pocket size'...oooops i do 3 folds...im wasting my time doing an extra fold..lol
28 Oct 2011
Total posts 645
and then i might endure the pain/inconvenience of unfolding once if required... OMG
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
17 Aug 2012
Total posts 2199
Please excuse me while I drown myself in something.
Singapore Airlines - KrisFlyer
14 Jan 2014
Total posts 340
I suggest tequila.... It's a cure all for these types of situations ;-p
01 Feb 2012
Total posts 371
don't think you understand how vines work....
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
25 May 2012
Total posts 580
Is it actually A4 or Letter sized? This is a US carrier afterall...
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
17 Aug 2012
Total posts 2199
Doesn't matter - as long as you can scale it up/down as necessary. It's basically two screenshots from a Passbook sort of thing, and it's very neat - a damn sight better than printing off a full A4, folding it, then unfurling the Scroll of Passage when at the gate.
I like this.
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
25 May 2012
Total posts 580
Actually, QR barcodes are meant to be square so should the boarding pass be scaled to fit the page dimensions it could stretch the barcode beyond machine-readability, though I concede it probably wouldn't affect scaling between A4 & Letter.
Likewise, BCBP (the normal 2D barcode embraced as the industry standard) can suffer the same affliction for print at home boarding passes.
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
17 Aug 2012
Total posts 2199
Yes, you're quite right, but letter to A4 shouldn't be too serious. I can see problems going up/down to legal, though.
25 Sep 2013
Total posts 1242
Neat.
Virgin Australia - Velocity Rewards
21 Aug 2013
Total posts 138
That little blobby, yellow guy on their website looks like the Metro "Dumb Ways To Die" character!
28 Oct 2011
Total posts 645
funny how we've moved from the original boarding pass (thicker paper/cards)...to now complaining about the size of a piece of thin paper that must be easy to fold/stow in your pocket and present for boarding... gotta love 'progress'
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
29 Jun 2013
Total posts 366
well done Virgin America
Virgin Australia - Velocity Rewards
07 Jan 2014
Total posts 31
I love how airlines are trying to make the mundane things more fun. More companies (I'm looking at you banks) need to get onto this!
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
17 Aug 2012
Total posts 2199
CommBank introduced cardless cashout (requires an app).
Virgin Australia - Velocity Rewards
07 Jan 2014
Total posts 31
I did see that but haven't tried it yet.
What I was getting at though was making boring mundane tasks on the website more interesting - like what Virgin Atlantic has done with bookings.
05 Jun 2012
Total posts 31
A credit card style boarding pass would be the most convenient way really.
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
17 Aug 2012
Total posts 2199
Qantas has that.
05 Jun 2012
Total posts 31
Is it a single use one or something linked to the FF membership card?
25 Sep 2013
Total posts 1242
Your QFF card becomes your boarding pass (for domestic flights).
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