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It seems like e-v-e-r-y major airline has an app, except maybe Hawaiian. No complaints here. Aside from the multiple travel apps adorning my iPhone screen like an intricately woven quilt, I haven’t found it necessary to install an app like Delta, AA or Alaska each time I fly those airlines. I only install my primary airline’s app, and given my homebase is Vancouver, my main squeeze is Air Canada.
But, I will make one airline app exception in the name of loyalty—aka: free flights, upgrades and lounge access—for my preferred airline alliance. Aside from SkyTeam, two major airline alliances it makes sense to be part of in North America, if not worldwide, are OneWorld and Star Alliance.
A few weeks ago the world’s first and largest alliance announced their first app: Star Alliance Navigator. It only debuted eight months after OneWorld’s but who’s counting anyway. After all, it’s about quality. The Star Alliance app does a lot of tasks you’d expect it to do: flight status and search, airport info and member airline destination profiles {perfect for when you’re flying to Istanbul and haven’t had time to research the city}. However, I find this app most valuable for the following features: airport guides and downloadable maps, lounge info and city guides. I’m seriously impressed with the city guides {located in the Airport Info area}. I read through some of the guides for cities I know well and appreciate the level of detail and thorough neighbourhood overviews. My only criticism would be the info appears to be slightly outdated, therefore I’d use it as a starting point, not as your latest and greatest guide.
PS – The OneWorld app, also available on Blackberry, has a flight search as well as showcases partner airlines. Once the flight search results are rendered for your query, it offers a Book Now option, not available in the Star Alliance app, taking you to the partner airline’s mobile booking site. This is a nice feature, but I’d prefer to use my Kayak app for flight search. For now, I’ll just download Star Alliance’s app until OneWorld makes a significant update!
What airline apps are must-haves for you?
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The reviews for the Blackberry version were very poor. Hopefully RIM can improve it.
Agreed. I also hope OneWorld will just improve their app in general. It’s pretty basic at this point. However, the nice thing about apps is one update can change everything!