Delta, American Airlines Working to Support iOS 6 Passbook

One of the biggest worries for any new feature arriving on a device is that, while good on paper, its usefulness for an average consumer can sometimes be dependent on how well other companies and entities support it.

For example, Google can pack all the NFC capabilities it wants into its Android phones; that does one little good if the local Burger King barely even takes credit cards.

Good news for Apple loyalists, however: Two major U.S. airlines are expected to soon support the new "Passbook" feature found in iOS 6 (expected to launch next week).

Passbook, for those uninformed, is designed to be a digital wallet for all of those annoying shopping loyalty cards, coupons, tickets, and other must-have print materials that one often has to lug around on a daily basis. In theory, a user would be able to connect one's upcoming flight to Apple's Passbook, which would pull up a boarding pass on the lock screen of a user's iPhone as soon as the device realizes that a user is in the airport.

According to a spokesperson for American Airlines, talking to Skift's Dennis Schaal, the company is, "rolling out an app update in the coming weeks in support of Passbook."

"In the meantime, customers can still access their mobile boarding passes in the current version of American's mobile app," the spokesperson added.

Delta's also allegedly working on updates to its app that will allow it to work with Passbook, but representatives allegedly didn't want to chat about the functionality publicly.

While it's not especially helpful for American customers, Virgin Australia has also allegedly implemented Passbook capabilities — as discovered by an iOS 6 beta-toting flyer who checked into his flight on the carrier's mobile site and was asked if he would like to download the digital boarding pass to his iPhone's Passbook.

United hasn't said anything about Passbook as of late. But given that it's the only airline carrier that's specifically shown in Apple's promotional shots for Passbook, it stands to reason that iPhone-carrying United travelers will soon find their boarding passes leaping over to Apple's digital dropbox.

And even if your favorite airline ignores Passbook completely, at least you'll probably be able to use the app to pull up a loyalty card for your favorite terminal coffee shop while you wait to turn in your physical boarding pass.

 

For more tech tidbits from David Murphy, follow him on Facebook or Twitter (@thedavidmurphy).