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Flight Boarding passes on Apple Watch

Z

zed2

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jul 17, 2004
606
59
Bucks
Lots of airlines are now putting the boarding passes on the Apple Watch, and that's super handy.. But really it's a complete fail until the airports change their scanners so the watches will fit under them.

It's also an issue as in lots of places the scanner is not somewhere you can put your wrist to be scanned.

This is going to take a huge re-education and re-design for all those places to make the scanners accessible.
 
I flew American Airlines yesterday out of LAX and used my watch to get through both TSA and to board the plane. No scanner problems for me.
 
Well I think you got lucky.. or may be the US scanners are where Apple tested this..

I flew from London to Dubai and back to London yesterday both sides could not handle the watch..

At London I was able to get through security with the watch but could not get into BA lounge or onto the plane.. Had to resort to the phone.
 
zed2 said:
Well I think you got lucky.. or may be the US scanners are where Apple tested this..

I flew from London to Dubai and back to London yesterday both sides could not handle the watch..

At London I was able to get through security with the watch but could not get into BA lounge or onto the plane.. Had to resort to the phone.
Click to expand...

Seems like I read an article awhile back about this issue being related to a specific carrier.

What carrier did you use? Honestly, I'm not going to be the guy holding up the boarding so I can use my apple watch. Seems like TSA isn't a problem (and security in general).
 
Well I was flying with British Airways.. but any Airline flying out of London airports will be effected as they all have the same Clam style scanner..

It looks like this:

access-BGR125-reading-NFC-phone.jpg
 
Flying from China and Europe to the U.S. All laptops and phones had to boot up and be working in order to board. I wonder about the Watch.
 
I've used mobile passes several times on Southwest, at least when actually boarding the plane. I haven't tried it at the TSA yet. It might be somewhat awkward with the way the scanners are set up.
 
Bigdog9586 said:
Flying from China and Europe to the U.S. All laptops and phones had to boot up and be working in order to board. I wonder about the Watch.
Click to expand...

Yup was subjected to a random check leaving Dubai this week... They made me turn on my Macbook Air.. which I thought was very funny... there's no space in it for anything even if I had removed all the guts!
 
I've flown twice with Apple Watch. The TSA scanner, at least at the airports I was at, makes me flip my wrist so upside down and behind the counter that it's easier to use the phone and place it there.

American Airlines boarding works fine though. My arm fits under the scanner.
 
I travel a lot--but still print my boarding passes. I have seen enough phones dropped, and the printed pass often scans faster. If they set up the scanners to handle a watch better I might give it a try.
 
Had no issues flying SFO->JFK. The TSA PreCheck logo on my United boarding pass was very small, and the lady peered at it for a while before letting me into the PreCheck line. The Centurion Lounge uses a handheld scanner which worked fine as well.
 
zed2 said:
Well I was flying with British Airways.. but any Airline flying out of London airports will be effected as they all have the same Clam style scanner..

It looks like this:

View attachment 552099
Click to expand...

As I've been flying out of Asian hubs recently, I won't be familiar with this clam-style scanner until this summer when we travel to London. I assume the problem is that the space is too narrow and not just that it requires an awkwardly positioned arm, yes? If the latter -- and I can only assume it's been tried already -- but might wearing the AW with its face on your palm side provide a fix?
 
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