Malaysia Airlines goes mobile

Malaysia Airlines (MAS) has come up with a new mobile booking system, which according to the airline offers “the most comprehensive menu of mobile phone functionality available to airline passengers anywhere in the world”.

Developed by SITA Lab, the application, MHmobile - flymas.mobi, provides complete control of the journey to passengers using any web-enabled mobile device.  

Features: 

• It not only allows passengers to book, pay, and check-in and board their flight simply using their mobile phone but, in a world first, it also harnesses the capabilities of smart phones to offer passengers context-aware services using geolocation.

• flymas.mobi is also the first mobile airline application which connects bookings to Facebook, TripIt and Dopplr enabling friends and colleagues to be informed about each other’s travel plans.

• In another major first, it allows passengers to check the status of a delayed bag using flymas.mobi because the application can link to SITA’s WorldTracer, the industry-standard, fully-automated system for tracing lost and mishandled passenger baggage used by more than 440 airlines and ground-handling companies worldwide.

Malaysia Airlines CEO, Tengku Dato’ Azmil Zahruddin, said the airline “did not want to simply miniaturise” its  web site for use on mobile phones, but to create an offering based on one web application, one link and one click with no download required. 

“Passengers can book and hold their flights. Pay for them. Receive a 2D boarding pass after check-in. Check flight status and timetables. If a bag is delayed that can also be followed up using flymas.mobi. We can also directly offer travellers special mobile deals based on their actual location,” he said.

All major operating systems and manufacturers are supported including Blackberry (RIM), the iPhone, Android Google phone, Symbian (Nokia, Motorola, Samsung, Sony Ericsson) and Windows Mobile (HTC, LG, Samsung, Sony Ericsson). flymas.mobi supports any screen above 128 pixels.