Have iBeacon – Will Travel

Have you ever been at the airport baggage claim area for what seemed like an interminable amount of time? It can be quite frustrating having to wait for the conveyor belt to start and the bags to flow down from the baggage chute. Once the belt has started, everyone from the flight rushes towards the conveyor belt. This, of course, makes finding your own bag more challenging as the scrum of people restricts your view thus complicating your efforts.

With that in mind, the folks at Aww Apps have a solution. Rather than adorning your baggage with your lucky keychain or a favorite ribbon, why not just use an iBeacon that has been paired with the Travel Radar app?

As shown in the video, the idea is simple: pair a Bluetooth-based iBeacon with the Travel Radar app on your phone, place the beacon in your baggage, and you will get a notification on your phone as your baggage gets closer to your location. If you are the less patient type, you can also open the app and see an approximate distance to your baggage.

Folks, this is a nifty use of iBeacons.

P.S. The UI for the tracker is pleasant, but wouldn't it have been cool to have it look like the motion tracker from Aliens?

The iPad Will Not Make Air Fares Cheaper, Folks

Nathanael Arnold, in a post over at Wall St. Cheat Sheet:

Besides using the iPad as a piloting accessory, the airline is also initiating its use as an informational customer service device for flight attendants. It remains to be seen if the airline will be passing its new iPad fuel savings on to the passengers.

Arnold's post notes that American Airlines will save a nice bundle of cash in the form of fuel savings by using the iPad as an Electronic Flight Bag for its pilots instead of a traditional paper-based flight bag. The above quote is something that I often see in aviation reporting...the implication being that everywhere an airline saves money is an opportunity to pass those savings on to consumers.

Folks, that just isn't realistic. Airlines in the USA are having difficulties in being profitable (and quite often have been losing money). Airfares are, oddly enough, actually very inexpensive compared to fares in the past (adjusted for inflation). Every bit of cost savings that an airline can manage in today's market will be used to maintain the health and well-being of that airline, not used to save Joe Traveler a couple of bucks on airfare.

Gogo Does Not Have a Monopoly on In-Flight Internet

Jeff John Roberts at GigaOM:

In throwing out the case, Chen accepted GoGo’s argument that it doesn’t have dominant market share because it covers only 16% of all US airplanes, and it’s possible for the remaining planes, which do not offer internet, to sign up with a competing service provider. The internet contracts are sold on airplane-by-airplane basis, and not across entire airlines.

As noted in the article, Gogo has an astounding 85% share of aircraft that offer in-flight internet service in the USA. However, that is altogether different from having a monopoly on in-flight internet service when that 85% share represents only 16% of all aircraft in the USA. This lawsuit seems like it was brought forward by people who feel that they are entitled to everything that they want.

Japanese Airline Offers In-Flight Entertainment Via Smartphones

Courtesy of the folks at Airport News Japan:​

Users download movies, TV shows, music, magazines, games or other content to their smartphones or other devices through the airport terminal's dedicated Wi-Fi network, which they can enjoy without limitation while in the airport or on their departing flight.

What makes this more interesting than the usual in-flight entertainment (IFE) news is the fact that this is being done by Peach, a low-cost carrier in the same vein as Southwest Airlines or Ryanair.​ As noted in the post, low-cost carriers don't typically offer IFE in their aircraft. This is a very smart, relatively low tech way to offer IFE to passengers without incurring the costs of a traditional installed IFE system or Internet connectivity systems/services like Gogo.