The Promise of Mobile Tech – My Experience with American Airlines App

Mobile apps have always been a bit of a mixed bag. There’s a lot of promise for having the right information at your fingertips when you need it, but the reality hasn’t always been that seamless.

A few weeks ago, I had one of those experiences where my phone was providing me useful information, in a stressful situation, and I saw how good it can be when the tech gets it right with a type of app that hasn’t always been known for providing that.

Here’s the scenario. I’m on board an airplane once again. I’m on my way from Portland to Dallas, where I have a relatively quick connection to San Antonio, but as we pull away from the gate, there is a mechanical problem, so we have to go back to the gate instead of taking off.

So, while the maintenance issue is corrected, we sit on the airplane, and I realize there’s no way I’m going to make my connection. So I pull up the American Airlines app on my phone, and I notice that there’s already a new booking for a later flight to San Antonio at the end of the list of flights for this reservation. Cool.

Eventually, we take off, and upon arrival in Dallas, I again bring up the app, get my mobile boarding pass and gate information, and head for my connection.

Oh, and I also check on my checked luggage, and see that it was actually placed on the next flight to San Antonio, the one there weren’t any seats on, so I know my bag will be waiting for me when I arrive, and sure enough, it was.

In this situation, mobile technology took what is normally a stressful, messy, situation, and instead made the whole thing simple for me. That’s the way we wish all of our apps worked with us, isn’t it?

Now if we can just get that to happen more often!

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