Now the TSA is working with five airlines and 70 airports to test paperless boarding passes.

Here’s how it works: When a traveler checks in on-line the airline emails a boarding pass in the form of a 2-D barcode that can be downloaded to a smartphone. The barcode on the phone can be scanned at the security checkpoint and by the airline gate agent; just like a paper pass.

It’s sound great, doesn’t it?

. But as I wrote in my most recent msnbc.com column – Going paperless: Tech-savvy air travelers on board – it’s probably not a good idea to disconnect your printer just yet. Electronic passes aren’t accepted everywhere. And they’re not fool-proof. “One of the first times I used one, my phone browser refreshed and I lost the boarding pass 30 seconds before boarding,” recalls Walter Hopgood, a frequent business traveler from Damascus, Oregon.

Path to paperless

Some airlines in Europe, Canada and Asia have been using paperless boarding passes since early 2007, but the United States has been behind the curve on adopting the new technology.

Why?

“We were slower to get Internet access on cell phones, slower to get affordable data plans on cell phones and slower than Europeans to start using cell phones for accessing data,” said Henry Harteveldt, a travel industry analyst for Forrester Research.  But it’s also because the TSA has been very cautious, says Catherine Mayer, vice president of airport services at SITA, an information technology company serving the aviation industry. “The agency had additional security requirements it wanted airlines to meet before it would allow paperless boarding to be introduced here.”

Continental, the first airline to work up software to meet TSA’s authentication standards, kicked off the TSA’s pilot program for paperless boarding in December, 2007. Now the test program includes five U.S. airlines (Alaska, American, Continental, Delta and United), 71 domestic airports and Frankfurt Airport in Germany.

“Airlines are able to streamline the airport experience for passengers,” said Justin Taubman, the program manager for TSA’s mobile boarding pass program. “And the TSA is able to enhance the security of the boarding passes.”

Good to go?

While electronic boarding passes do save paper and time while heightening the TSA’s ability to detect fraudulent boarding passes, the pilot program is not glitch-free.

Some passengers encounter scanners with spent batteries or security-checkpoint staffers untrained or uninterested in the mobile pass pilot program.  When Justin Meyer of Kansas City showed up at 5 a.m. at a Fort Lauderdale, Fla., security checkpoint armed with his electronic boarding pass, a TSA employee pressed him for paper. “I didn’t have it,” Meyer recalled, “so I had to wait about 10 minutes while they found the scanner and plugged it in.”

Other travelers have stored a paperless pass on a smartphone that has lost its charge. Or they’ve sailed through the TSA checkpoint paper-free, only to discover that an airline is using a gate without a scanner. Or they’ve discovered some airlines only deliver one paperless pass per smartphone — and that won’t work if you’re traveling with a family of four.

“Like any new technology or service, there needs to be a transition period when everyone is learning the way to proceed,” said Steve Lott of International Air Transport Association, an industry trade group.  And so for now, notes Shashank Nigam of the airline consulting firm, Simpliflying, “Paperless boarding may very well remain an early adopter thing until all airlines and airports fall in line.”

That may not be too far off. TSA’s Justin Taubman says the agency is currently working with vendors to develop equipment for a new boarding pass scanning system. “Once the new Credential Authenticating Boarding Pass Scanning System, or CAT/BPSS, is in place,” he said, “the pilot project will become an official TSA program.”

And we’ll have to learn a new acronym.

You can read my original column – Going paperless: Tech-savvy air travelers on board – and see some reader comments – on msnbc.com.

For years, a nice perk at Baltimore-Washington Thurgood Marshall Airport (BWI) has been free 30-minute short-term parking. It meant you could drive someone to the airport and, instead of rushing them out of the car at the curb, you could park, help carry in their suitcase, and walk your friend or family member to the terminal.  The perk also worked in your favor if you were picking someone up at the airport, if their flight was on-time.

You can still do that, of course. But those first 30 minutes of parking at BWI airport are no longer free. Now it will cost you $2.

Why the change? With the downturn in travel, airports everywhere are looking around for new ways to earn money.  BWI figures it can make $500,000 a year from charging for the short term parking. (There’s more information about BWI’s decision in the Baltimore Sun.)

While some small airports still offer free short term parking (and a few really small airports offer free parking all the time), most large airports don’t offer any sort of free short term parking anymore.

Unless you count the cell-phone lots where, for now, the parking does seem to be free.  But who wants to lay odds on which airport will be the first to start charging for that?

Do you know of an airport that still offers free short term parking?  If so, please leave a comment below.

Here’s a report from CNN about one of the first (press-heavy) flights.  Wish I’d been there just to see the cell-phone costume in person.

The service is provided by Row 44, which provides Wi-Fi via aircraft-to-satellite technology.  The service will be free during an initial testing phase and will allow passengers to access the Internet via laptops, iPhone, and Wi-Fi enabled smart phones.

Cellular phone service won’t work with Southwest’s in-flight Wi-Fi service. And while VOIP will be blocked for passengers, it will be available for the cockpit and cabin crew.

That opens a lot of possibilities.   Good and bad.

Also, while Southwest is heavily touting the fact that it’s wrapped one of its airplanes with a decal featuring the cover model from the 2009 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, according to Row 44′s president and co-founder Gregg Fialcowitz, Southwest Airlines will be filtering on-board Wi-Fi to block sites that might contain pornography.

Sort of a mixed message there, don’t ya think?

My Well Mannered Traveler column on MSNBC.com this week is all about courtesy – and the efforts to encourage it – on buses, subways, and trains. Many of the strategies public transit agencies are trying out could help air travelers get along with each other inside airports and on airplanes as well.

For example, wouldn’t you like to be able to point at this poster from NJ Transit next time there’s a loudmouth on their cell phone sitting next to you in an airport gate area?

One strategy I didn’t get to include in the column this week comes from Jodi R.R. Smith, of Mannersmith Etiquette Consulting, who created her own subway courtesy campaign:

“…. Since I boarded the train at an early stop, there were almost always seats. I would sit, until I saw someone who needed the seat more than I did. Then in a firm tone, I would offer my seat… It was interesting to notice that on the days that I offered my seat, those around me, at subsequent stops, would also offer their seats to those in need. However, on days when I sat with my nose in a book, rarely would any seats be offered. Remember, your good example can set off a positive chain reaction.”

There are now 50 free 4-outlet charging stations scattered through Terminals A, B, and C at Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR).

The charging stations are courtesy of Samsung Mobile, which sponsors similar power charging stations at five other major airports (so far): John F. Kennedy International Airport (54), Los Angeles International Airport (51) LaGuardia International Airport (12), Orlando International Airport (18), and Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport (22). In addition, Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport has eight Samsung Mobile Travel Centers, which also offer couches and other amenities.

Power charging stations (both free and pay-per-charge), desks with working power outlets, and banks of seats with built in outlets seem to be popping up at more and more airports these days. But don’t leave your extension cord home just yet: during high traffic times a spot at the charging station is harder to get than a seat in the sports bar during a playoff game.

The exhibit runs through Nov. 8, 2008 and includes memorabilia from the Intrepid, replicas of fighter planes that have launched from the aircraft carrier, interactive educational displays, and an “Art in Motion” program that invites travelers to paint a large model airplane.

The opening of the Intrepid Museum exhibit is part of Aviation Week activities hosted by the Food & Shops at LGA’s Central Terminal. Festivities include a week-long sidewalk sale, food sampling, and free airplane-themed balloons and stickers for kids. Through November 20^th, travelers can also enter a contest to win one of the exhibited model airplanes as well as tickets to the museum.

About The Intrepid

The Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum re-opens November 8, 2008 at New York City’s new, park-like Pier 86. The complex includes 30 restored aircraft, the former USS Growler submarine and a Concorde airplane.

Maybe never.

A while back, several members of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee introduced the Halting Airplane Noise to Give Us Peace (HANG UP) Act.

The goal: to make sure cell phone calls would never be allowed on US airplanes.

They might be getting their way. Today the committee approved by voice vote a bill that would permanently uphold the current Federal Aviation Administration and Federal Communication Commission ban on cell phone use during flight.

You can read more about this topic and find links to several of my Well Mannered Traveler columns on the topic here.

(Illustration by MSNBC’s Duane Hoffman)

Now comes word that passengers on at least one TAP Portugal plane can send and receive e-mail and make flying phone calls as well. The airline has equipped a single Airbus A319 aircraft with the Mobile OnAir service and will test that service for six months.

On the test plane – and perhaps eventually on all TAP Portugal flights across Europe – passengers can use BlackBerry-type devices and mobile phones to send and receive emails and text messages, and to make and receive voice calls.

I chatted with Leavenworth about some of my favorite airports to spend time in – including San Francisco International Airport - SFO (great art and food choices in the Int’l Terminal), Oregon’s Portland International Airport- PDX (great shops and no sales tax), and Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport (a casino, lots of art, on-site museum, and loads more).

Leavenworth was especially pleased to hear me praise Schiphol, because his paper’s hometown airport, Hartford’s Bradley International Airport (BDL) has a direct flight to Amsterdam. Oops.. not any more.. Northwest Airlines just announced that it is dropping that route as of October 2.

Bradley still has loads to offer, including a free parking coupon for folks who sign up for the airport’s frequent-parker program and free Wi-Fi for all.

Last time I went through BDL, they were still displaying something truly unusual: three patch-sized embroidered scenes created by Raymond Materson to honor the 1994 Special Olympics. Materson was in prison when he made the patches and unraveled his socks to get the colored thread to use in his artwork. Once out of prison, Materson kept sewing. His work is now highly prized and displayed in museums and in art galleries.

Materson is currently in his first major overseas exhibit at the Compton Verney Gallery in Warwkickshire, England. To celebrate, he made this portrait of Queen Victoria and was kind enough to let me share it with you.

Courtesy and copyright: Ray Materson