helping in the effort to go paperless: the iPhone as a boarding pass

I try to minimize the use of paper as much as possible, opting for PDFs of my account statements, paying bills electronically, and scanning and shredding the stuff I get in paper form as much as possible.

I also enjoy using my iPhone very much.

So I was very excited when I saw this article.

This person managed to get the airline staff to let him use his iPhone displaying a PDF of his electronic ticket for checking in! He displayed the barcode on his iPhone and they were able to scan it.

While most airline staff today will not be open to the idea of someone using their iPhone (or Blackberry, or your pda/phone of choice) as an electronic ticket yet, I would hope the idea is something the industry would eventually embrace.