Mobile boarding app for airline agents

ALASKA AIRLINES Fast Flexible Service

Reducing flight delays and improving passenger experience gives us an advantage over our competitors.

A passenger scans their own boarding pass against the target on the iPad stand at the gate.
The boarding app's primary control screen on an iPad mini, showing a scanned boarding pass and the passenger's seat.

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Gate agent testing a prototype at SeaTac Airport
Role
Lead Product Designer
Team
1 PM
1 Designer
2 Devs
1 Content Strategist
Shipped
2020

Situation

The airline's legacy operations software on a CRT monitor: a dense text passenger list beside a colour-coded seat map.

The airline had been running its airport operations using very antiquated enterprise software. It was process heavy and required several analog touches to complete common tasks. The mobile operations team divided airline employee tasks into four dedicated native mobile apps for the iPad mini. My focus was on the boarding process.

Role

As the product design lead I was responsible for breaking down large ambiguous problems into simple solutions and driving them from user research through to delivering pixel perfect assets. This included gaining buy in and working with a cross-functional team of PMs, front and back end engineers, policy and procedures and legal.

The six-step design process: observations, interviews and task flows in discovery, then concept, prototype and user test in delivery.

Boarding app

I completed and shipped 90% of the mobile boarding app that, in its first five months, successfully boarded over a million passengers. This product supports multiple agents in the completion of several tasks under tight timelines from D-60(pre boarding) down to D-0(flight closure)

Several procedural features include: scanning boarding passes, tagging luggage, resolving reservation issues, crew verification, announcements, and gate display control.

Primary boarding control screen with a scanned boarding pass and the boarding group indicators.
Primary boarding control screen
Gate-checking a bag: a printed luggage tag preview on the iPad mini.
Gate checking luggage
The passenger manifest, listing seats and boarding status with per-passenger controls.
Passenger manifest and control
A boarding announcement script ready for the agent to read at the gate.
Boarding announcements
The six agent tasks the app supports, arranged around a gate agent: crew check in, scanning, bag tagging, boarding group display, SSRs and announcements.

iPad stand & target

We started with the problems beyond existing software app needs and discovered opportunities to improve scanning boarding passes and reducing airline agent fatigue. This iPad stand with boarding pass target allows passengers to scan their own passes faster than the previous hand scanning methods. The iPad stand is now at all Alaska Airline gates throughout the US.

A passenger holds a phone over the boarding pass target on the iPad stand.
A passenger scans a paper boarding pass at the stand while the agent watches the iPad.
Close-up of the moulded scanning target on the head of the iPad stand.
Passengers boarding at gate C9 while agents work the gate podium.

Impact

195 Million

Passengers boarded since 2020.

In a wildly successful debut, the Alaska Airlines boarding app moved 1 million passengers through the gates in its first month, contributing to nearly 200 million successful boardings to date. The feedback from gate agents was overwhelmingly positive, and the smoother process translated directly into fewer delays and happier travelers.s, while proactive end-of-life warnings gave customers a new sense of confidence and control over their appliances.