BlackBerries, cool. Instead of Paper Airplane Tickets, not cool
I was in line the other day to get through security at Logan, and there were about 10 people in front of me. As I got closer to the TSA guy, I noticed 3 of the 4 guys directly in front of me not taking out their paper tickets, but getting out their BlackBerries instead. I know security and airlines started allowing passengers to hold up their mobile devices with the bar code of a ticket to be scanned, presumably contained in an email or from a secure website, but I had never seen it before. Kind of cool.
Well, not so cool. It’s a great idea, save the time it takes to go to the kiosk and print out a ticket, which could take, oh, I don’t know, maybe 30 seconds, possibley a minute. After all, every second counts. So when I heard about this idea, I thought it was kind of cool. I would love to be able to get anywhere that requires a document, device or card to scan (toll booth, subway, check into a hotel, get into my building, shop at Shaws, concert, movies) with only one form of ID, like my BlackBerry. Great idea.
But picture this. For the people in the security line who were holding a paper ticket, it took maybe 15 seconds for the TSA guy to check the ticket against their ID, and off they went. When the first guy with a mobile device held up his virtual ticket, the TSA guy pointed his gun thingy up to it and nothing. No beep. He moved it around, tried different angels, had the guy with the blackberry change positions, they chanted in unison and even prayed. But nothing. The 15 seconds turned into 2 minutes. He gave up and had the guy go to some kind of other TSA supervisor. Then off to the second guy with a blackberry. Same freakin thing. And I am standing their waiting to hand over my 20th century printed ticket to get on with my life. But nope, I had to watch this train wreck twice more.
The guys got it scanned by someone else and then I had to deal with the metal detector. You see, when you go through, you have to hold your ticket in your hand (which they don’t do in Houston, I thought it was standard everywhere, strange, another example of inconsistency in air travel which makes me nuts). But you have to put your phone or blackberry through the bag scanner. You see where I’m going with this? The TSA guys didn’t know how to deal with passengers that didn’t have their ticket in their hand, so they STOPPED the assembly line of people going through that metal detector thing while they made the guys get their devices to show it to them. Again, I like the idea BUT IT BROKE DOWN THE PROCESS. It stopped the flow, it reduced the madness I have to do EVERY SINGLE WEEK into a crawl.
So as we try to make life easier, we make it harder. Not sure if I will ever use my blackberry as my ticket, because other than saving a minute or two, not sure what other benefits it carries. When those guys got on the plane, they would have to have their devices scanned by the gate agent. And what if the scanner isn’t working well. That happens to me all the time. But with a paper ticket, they rip off part of it and away you go. No ripping off part of the blackberry, no way nuh uh. Not gunna happen. So then what mister-smarty-pants-who-likes-to-use-gadgets-just-to-be-hip you are NOT hip trust me go shove your iPhone where the sun don’t shine.
But that’s just me, what do I know?