Cell Phone Parking Lot at SeaTac Airport Offers QR Code with Recent Arrivals

Ever since Seattle airport’s cell phone parking lot opened in December 2004, it has been heavily used by Seattleites. I’ve been there myself, listening to the radio and wondering whether my friend’s flight had arrived. One late night in 2008 I actually waited there over an hour because I wasn’t aware of a long delay!

No longer. Well, I may still have to wait, but at least I can get some information. SeaTac has created a simple website that shows the status for flights that are scheduled to come in. At the moment you load the page, it grabs all flights within about 20 minutes and shows you where they came from, which airline, the flight number, the time, gate, baggage claim carousel and the arrival status.

SeaTac Flight Arrivals on Your Smartphone

This is a great idea! It was accurate for the flight that I was waiting for, and certainly helped keep me entertained.

The mobile use case is solid and everything works, but the presentation is lackluster.
Having the large QR code is pretty nice, for those of us who know what they are and don’t mind their lack of beauty. Mobile phone users who don’t know what to do with a QR code can still get access to the content by typing in the URL list below the QR code. Presenting users with more than one onramp to the mobile web is a must, and this is pretty well done. They could also incorporate an texting short code, such as Text FLIGHTS to 11111.

Once you get to the mobile web, however, it’s slightly disappointing. The information that you want is all there, which is great, but it’s pretty stark as far as design and readability.

Screenshot of Flight Arrivals at SeaTac Airport

When I load it on an iPhone, you can’t even read the text without zooming in. Once you zoom in, the table is too large to see the entire width. Also, there’s no branding, no links to other relevant information (not even the nice Sea-Tac Mobile Webpage which uses Sencha and works on Webkit browsers), and nothing to engage me once I’m there. I could go on, but you get the gist. This would be easy to fix with a mobile web developer (Yours Truly thinks this would be an awesome project) and some mobile device optimization.

In the meantime, however, the information is there and it’s works, even if a bit clunky. This is a great mobile use case, and I’m sure impatient drivers will enjoy it for years to come.

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Posted in QR Code
Tags: cell phone, good qr code, mobile phone, mobile website, QR code, QR Codes, seatac airport