[dkarl]

The Delta iPhone app saved my ass and let me check in right before the cut-off for flight I needed to make, while I was stuck in traffic in a cab outside the airport. However, downloading the app was preceded by ten minutes of trying desperately to check in using the Delta web site on my iPhone. I was stymied by a combination of strangely sized fonts (which forced me to zoom way in on a huge page in order to locate and click on tiny menu titles at the bottom of the page), mysteriously placed menu pop-ups (as in I clicked a button to open a menu, and then had to pan around the page trying to find where the menu had appeared), and other problems that I never figured out.

I downloaded the app out of sheer desperation to check in on time for my flight. In any other circumstance, I would have given up, gone to a competitor, and filed the company and brand name in my brain under "fuck you." (Actually, I did that last part anyway.)

Nagging me to download an app is bad enough. If you took the time to build an iOS or Android app but didn't put any effort into mobile usability for your web site, then you presumed you could make me install your app. You presumed too much.

[jrockway]

> In any other circumstance, I would have given up, gone to a competitor, and filed the company and brand name in my brain under "fuck you." (Actually, I did that last part anyway.)

This is why I never want to own an airline: you get blamed when your customer leaves his house too late to be at the airport on time.

[viraptor]

Why the hate? He said "check in right before the cut-off", so he was on time. This could just as well have happened at any other location any other day and be just as annoying/time-wasting. For example if you tried to check-in from a hotel where the mobile is still your only internet device the situation wouldn't change.

The situation doesn't change the fact that the UX for mobile users is/was very bad.

[dkarl]

Checking in is rarely done in person anymore. Checking in online is the norm, and I normally do it first thing in the morning, from home, wearing my bathrobe and sipping coffee. I don't know what practical purpose it serves for the airline, but for passengers it's just a formality you have to complete by a certain time to make sure they don't cancel your reservation. It has nothing to do with being at the airport on time, except that in this particular case I had to check in using my phone because I was in a cab on the way to catching my flight.

[chiph]

The Delta app is actually very useful - I don't categorize it as "apptrash" at all. It tells me the gate, reminds me when I'm able to check in, and even has a spot for me to record where I parked my car. :)

My only beef is that not all of their gates have scanners capable of reading the boarding pass barcode off the phone, so I end up printing the passes anyway.

[rhizome]

I wouldn't be surprised if responsive/web-OK site views were budgeted away in favor of app development. They should be complementary, but this is an airline we're talking about.

[TazeTSchnitzel]

Thing is, I'm fairly sure it would be cheaper to make the website responsive than to make a standalone app.

[stevoski]

Remember Hanlon's Razor: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

After being inside large, bureaucratic organisations, I've learnt that this is often the best explanation.

[rhizome]

Right, and the stupidity is twofold: that external access to resources (site/app) is a zero-sum game where x developers must be allocated to one or another goal without any coherence between them, which is source of the schism between app and mobileweb UXes, and that apparently nobody has spoken up to say that both products suck.

[wisty]

I thought most airlines let you check in via a web app. But maybe I'm spoilt - Australian airlines are a lot less competitive than US ones (they aren't often bankrupt), and perhaps they can afford such niceties.

[k3n]

Yes, but he mentioned that it was virtually unusable on his mobile device. Instead of a download app they could have just made the website mobile-friendly.

[philwelch]

US airline bankruptcies explained: http://philip.greenspun.com/flying/unions-and-airlines