Bragging rights today for British Airways with the launch of the first app to offer mobile boarding to users of the new Windows Phone 7.
BA claims it is the only airline in the UK to include such a facility alongside receiving mobile boarding cards after checking in on the Windows device.
[Added: On the global stage, of course, Air New Zealand can stake a claim to being the first airline with similar functionality on Windows 7]
A first for BA and its apps (already has iPhone, Android and Blackberry versions) is the inclusion of airport terminal maps for the first time, making use of what it calls the “dynamic home screen” on the Windows mobile.
Other features include real-time departure and arrival information as well as gate alerts for passengers using London Heathrow Terminal 5.
Perhaps the only wrinkle in BA’s wider mobile strategy is that to make use of the mobile boarding system passengers must become members of the airline’s Executive Club (although it is free).
BA says the app will be available from the Windwos Phone marketplace service from June 1 2011.
I’m afraid that British Airways are six months late to claim the bragging rights. Air New Zealand boarding pass application for Windows Phone 7 was released in Nov 2010.
http://www.markerstudio.com/our-work/case-studies/air-new-zealand-mpass-windows-phone-7-app/
@David – thus the caveat in the story. First airline in the UK.
Neither the headline, nor the first sentence, include that proviso. It’s not until you progress below the photograph that the UK is even mentioned.
I respectfully suggest you re-read the opening sentence to see what it is actually claiming.
@David. You got to it in the second par. I respectfully suggest you understand how news reporting works. Read through a dozen news articles anywhere on the web and tell me how often a fact is not included until the second par.
Hi,
“Bragging rights today for British Airways with the launch of the first app to offer mobile boarding to users of the new Windows Phone 7.”
This statement is in and of itself, false. The second paragraph is an unsourced opinion on the claims of BA. You cannot qualify the statement (fact) in the first sentence with the claim made in the second.
“BA claims it is the only airline in the UK to include such a facility alongside receiving mobile boarding cards after checking in on the Windows device.”
I agree with David that the reporting is somewhat disingenuous and misleading, and would benefit from the first paragraph being made factually correct or omitted.
A link to the app that did make it first, in the World, would be greatly appreciated;)
@keith – “bragging rights” implies it is a claim, so the first par IS qualified by the second.
Happy to include a link. Shame it’s so damn hard to find on the AirNZ website. The Microsoft page just redirects to the Zune download page, with no information about the app. Crappy UEX for our readers. Sorry.
News reporting works by misleading the reader until they’re well into the story?
@keri – maybe you need to read more news stories in print and the web. Nothing to do with misleading, it’s about holding the reader.
Actually, it’s misleading the whole way through. It states that this is the only airline app in the UK, but implies that it’s the first anywhere.
@keri – “claims it is the only airline in the UK to include such a facility alongside receiving mobile boarding cards after checking in on the Windows device”
No, pls read above again. “claims” is the caveat word. Only airline app in the UK to offer mobile boarding on a Windows 7 device.
If you saw a headline that read
“Qantas claims airline first for supersonic passenger travel”
I’m sure that you’d react along the lines of ‘NO WAY! British Airways did that in 1975!’ And then you’d be even more angry to read in the second paragraph, that they were only claiming to be the first supersonic transport plane to fly over Antarctica.
Well, that’s how we feel when we read a headline that says:
“British Airways claims airline first for Windows mobile”
@davidw – look, we can agree to disagree if you like?
Apologies if you feel duped!
What we are really interested in now is the seemingly meteoric rise of the AirNZ GrabaSeat project, according to traffic data we have.
We can’t really disagree that we disagree.
All I’m asking is for clarity and honesty in reporting. But if you disagree with me/us that this piece is unclear and misleading, it suggests that you won’t change in the future. And that rather puts me off tnooz. A pity.
(And, for the record, I’m not with Marker Studios, who did write the first such app, or AirNZ.)
@davidw
It’s a headline to draw people in. That’s what headlines do, sorry. If you feel that is wrong then all I can do is apologise. You will find journalists the world over equally protective of the headline concept.
There is nothing in the story that is factually incorrect, the reader knows all the essential facts by the second paragraph. If there is anything wrong then I am happy to correct it.
On the very rare occasions that we have unintentionally misled or been inaccurate in the 3,797 stories published on Tnooz so far, we have sought to address the error as soon as humanly possible.
I am happy to put in a qualifier about Air NZ.
Hope we have not lost you as a reader
Well, whatever you think of the headline, you can’t fault the right of reply or level of engagement from the Editor.
@Kevin – you need to introduce a ‘worldfirst’ tag for these stories to make it easy to find and verify them. Or maybe a ‘worldfirst_claim’ and ‘worldfirst_counterclaim’
@kevin – hey, maybe we could claim a “world first” for being a media brand to introduce a tagging system for world firsts!!
As for the comment about engagement – we just like to demonstrate how passionate we are alongside our readers. We love you all.
Or something.
Does Windows Phone 7 even have any users?!