Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air Launch Paperless Boarding Passes and Mobile.alaskaair.com

The electronic boarding pass allows customers flying from Anchorage, Alaska; Boise, Idaho; Denver; Las Vegas; Portland, Ore.; Seattle; and Spokane, Wash., to receive boarding information and check in with any mobile device.

"Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air's electronic boarding pass and optimized mobile Web site meet the needs of today's high-tech traveler, " said Steve Jarvis, Alaska Airlines' vice president of marketing, sales and customer experience. "Starting today, our customers can expedite the airport check-in process even more and get from curbside to planeside in record time."

Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air will offer electronic boarding passes starting Feb. 24 to passengers flying from San Jose, Calif., and Fairbanks, Alaska. By late-March, electronic boarding passes also will be available for customers traveling from five California cities: Burbank, Long Beach, Ontario, Palm Springs and Sacramento. The airlines will expand the program to dozens of other cities throughout the year.

Customers using mobile devices should look for an asterisk next to the departing city during the online check-in process to determine which airports have electronic boarding passes. After completing the check-in process, passengers must save or bookmark the electronic boarding pass Web page for easy retrieval during the security screening and boarding process.

Like a paper boarding pass, travelers can obtain their electronic boarding passes at mobile.alaskaair.com up to 24 hours in advance and up to one hour prior to departure. Each electronic boarding pass displays an encrypted barcode along with passenger and flight information that is scanned and verified by Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents at the security checkpoint. Passengers are still required to show photo identification to TSA agents.

New mobile access for Web site

The airlines also announced that alaskaair.com is now designed to fit small screens on hand-held mobile devices, providing customers with access to flight status information, flight schedules, Web check-in and flight alerts. Customers can also access "My Trips" to view their itineraries, change seats, check their upgrade status, and add an Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan number to a reservation. The mobile Web site also gives customers access to download electronic boarding passes.

"We've designed mobile.alaskaair.com with information travelers want on the day of flight," said Jarvis. "Later this year, Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air customers will see more mobile device enhancements to make travel more convenient."