No doubt that any of you who have ever had the fortune of travelling by plane have had the confusing experience of locating information on the boarding pass. These things, it seems, were designed by a “small, blind, parakeet” (from Tyler’s post) and finding what you want can be a mission in its self.
Well the guys from Sylion took it upon themselves to solve this issue and quite simply reinvent the boarding pass. Head on past the break to meet Flight Card, and see how their stunning design has influenced the way we fly — forever.
Getting Started
The opening screen you are faced with is your Flight list which shows you your itinerary of Flights. Tapping on the plus button in the top right corner will bring up the Search Flight option to either find your flight by the Flight number, or the route.
Flight list and Searching for your flight
Once you’ve found your flight and checked that it is correct, you can add it to your Flight List and you get beautiful view of your boarding pass. On here you see all the information you need for your flight at a glance such as the Terminal and Gate of depature as well as the arrival, rather than being forced to scour that ugly piece of white paper, then find the big ticker board and browse through about 50 flights to see yours.
Simply pressing Add will place it in your Flight List
Design
As you can probably tell by now, this app is no ugly tool. Designed by the awesome Jonatan Castro, this is a real piece of beauty — simple and sublte. Not only is it designed to give you all the information you need at a glance, but it is colour co-ordinated depending on the state of your flight, such as Scheduled or Cancelled. This makes finding out about your flight details not only pleasurable, but essentially effortless.
Beautiful, elegant designs of Flight Card
Functionality
In case you got the wrong impression, this is purely for personal use (currently at least) and is not a complete replacement for your boarding pass. You can’t hand your iPhone over at the gate and expect to be allowed on the flight. However, that’s not the point. This app is aimed at you, and it does a pretty damn good job of it.
The whole process is very easy, from finding your flight to checking your information (tapping on either the Time or the terminal/gate on the screen will alter between your departure and arrival information) and even to sharing your boarding pass via email or SMS. The sharing aspect is actually really useful, allowing you to quickly send a text your mate waiting for you or an email to your driver — a nice touch.
Search, Track, Share. Simple.
In terms of the backend, Flight Card is powered by FlightStats which is a very powerful service which delivers over 90,000 flights per day on more than 1500 airlines from over 16,000 airports. Essentially, you are going to struggle to find a flight that’s not covered by the service. This is an essential part of the app because if it was hit and miss whether your flight was there, it would render this app almost useless. It would be no good if it only worked part time.
The app is not only useful for those travelling, but can be extremely handy for those wondering where you are or if you have people meeting you upon arrival. With instant updates of delays or cancellations it can be an essential app for anyone even indirectly involved with your flight (I actually had a flight redirected the other day, which was highly irritating, and it would have been made much easier if the person meeting me new had this app and thus would have known of my hour-long delay).
Downsides?
One downside I hear people complaining about is the price — $4.99. You may be thinking that it’s a lot of money for an iPhone app, especially when compared to some of the games you can get for that price, however there is justification. Firstly, this is a very powerful tool that could save you time and significantly more money, but also the service they use (Flightstats) costs money as well which adds to the production costs. I believe its a very reasonable price considering its value.
Conclusion
This app is a very well finished with great design and functionality. If you fly frequently, heck even if you don’t, I would strongly recommend this app to anyone who wants to make the flying experience easier. Flight tracking has never been easier and it’s a sign that our lives can, and will, be made easier by technology.