By BRUCE GOLDING and MELISSA KLEIN
June 1, 2008
Ping! Your flight departs from Gate 10.
Continental Airlines passengers traveling out of Newark Airport can now download their boarding pass to their cellphone, BlackBerry or other hand-held device.
The move is part of an experiment by Continental under way at four airports across the country. Northwest Airlines launched a test of its paperless boarding pass last week in Indianapolis.
The programs let customers flying on domestic routes get their boarding passes e-mailed to their cellphones instead of printed on paper.
The electronic version shows the passenger's name, flight number and travel information, as well as a bar code that a security screener verifies with a hand-held scanner.
Continental says that about 600 to 700 passengers a day use the service in Houston, where it began in November. The Newark program started May 14.
