Domestic US Airlines as iPhone Apps

UPDATED 9/2/10

As a frequent traveler, I have determined that a nice compact iPhone application can make travel smoother by putting personalized flight data in the palm of your hand. So I went about loading all the airline's iPhone apps, and what-do-you-know? They largely don't exist.

AirTran - sorry no iPhone app, and no mobile site
Alaska - iPhone app
American - sorry no iPhone app, use their mobile site
Continental - sorry no iPhone app, use their mobile site
Delta - iPhone app or use their mobile site
Frontier - sorry no iPhone app, and no mobile site
Hawaiian - sorry no iPhone app, and no mobile site
JetBlue - sorry no iPhone app, use their mobile site
Midwest - sorry no iPhone app, use their mobile site
Southwest - iPhone app
United - sorry no iPhone app, use their mobile site or flight lookup mobile site
US Airways - sorry no iPhone app, use their mobile site
Virgin America - sorry no iPhone app, and no mobile site

One exception is the Oneworld Alliance iPhone app that supports American Airlines.

When you look at what the state of the travel economy has been, even with a brighter airline outlook; you wonder what airlines are doing to put paying passengers into more seats.

So here is a simple case of why every single airline above should have an iPhone app:

Rely on this number or anyone else's, but Apple has sold 50 million iPhones. Not all in the US...but AT&T activated 2.7 million in the last quarter ending March 2010.

You can do the math on how many early adopters traded up, how many people got tired of AT&T service issues, but any person that has eyes knows - there are a bunch of people carrying an iPhone nowadays.

On my last flight, I estimate there were 1.5 iPhones per row of the Delta B757. With 33 rows, that comes down to approximately 50 iPhones out of 162 seats - or roughly 1/3 of the aircraft. There was of course 1 Microsoft Kin, because he sat next to me, but that is statistically insignificant, right?

Let's compare that with the average domestic passenger enplanements for the 12 months between April 2009 and March 2010...51.6 million per month (Bureau of Transportation Statistics).

We need some more math here, based on my experience, most enplanements are double counts because most people fly roundtrips....so 25 million or so unique passengers a month, which is a number comparable to the number of domestic iPhones. So, I think, my estimate of how many iPhones on that plane was low.

In the gate area waiting on flights I see people mucking about with their iPhones, but they probably aren't turning to Twitter or Facebook or an airline blog for FLIFO.

Now that you may be convinced, here are some basics for any airline iPhone application:

1. Persistent identity storage. I don't want to spend 5 minutes signing in at least twice a week to access personalized data. There are too many examples to list here of persistent identity storage on the iPhone.

2. Contextual guidance within and around airports. Has anyone ever seen the iPhone app Geodelic? They have an Experience set up for the Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport. This is just a start: guide me to your ticket counters, events you sponsor in my current city, to sweetheart deals you have with airport service firms like Park-N-Fly.

3. Contextual guidance within the plane. Tell me what kind of plane I'm on, tell me about my seat. Show me a safety video...I've seen this one at least 100 times, and I would watch it again because it's funny.

4. Contextual guidance within the flight. Point out things on the ground during the flight: Here is an example from the 1940s that we put on Mapicurious: Eastern Air Lines Route Map. This describes in little tidbits about the cities you may fly over. Remember, you can save this info to the device similarly to the persistent identity storage. Another one...Let me buy food items and duty free (where appropriate)...you already let me surf the net.

5. Travel tips. Here's an inventory of what you know about me: My flight, the weather, how many bags I checked, how many bags others have checked, my boarding order, my frequent flier data, my aircraft, my origin and destination, and how much I paid. Use these to my advantage, and I will be a happy flier.

6. Caching of travel data. Sometimes you don't have wifi onboard. But I still would like the data.

Additionally, what we already know about iPhone apps is simple:

1. It can be a wrapper of your existing mobile site.
2. You will receive analytics that are probably better than your current ones.
3. You probably have a developer on staff that can program it.
4. It can be silently soft launched, or through you viral network and social media hounds.
5. It provides a better mobile experience than the mobile site.
6. 1/3 of the passengers on your next flight will be carrying an iPhone, not a KIN.

Bottom line is this: I throw away your constant credit card offers. I happen to already carry your card. I don't like it when the cheap, non-traveler guy gets first class upgrades due to his credit card spending habits versus me flying your airline constantly.

Spend that money using this implementation of consumer technology to better connect with the people that give you money for your core business...air travel.

Thanks,

Maps

A little disclosure: I don't work for any airline, but I do travel frequently - but not like George Clooney. I've flown all of the above airlines except: Virgin America, Hawaiian, and AirTran.