American Airlines likes Apple Passbook so far and is considering new features

Three months after implementing Apple Passbook for mobile boarding passes, American Airlines likes what it sees, and is considering adding other location-based features such as seat upgrade notifications.

“Adoption among all of our app users has been quite high,” says Phil Easter, American’s director of mobile apps.

American, United and Lufthansa were among the airlines supporting Passbook at its September launch. Users of the airlines’ respective iPhone apps can tie them into the Passbook iOS 6 app, and see their mobile boarding passes pop up in their iPhones when in the vicinity of the airport. There’s no need to hunt for boarding passes in the airlines’ apps.

Easter says American would like to develop features for Passbook “that tie in location services and customized content.”

Another American official previously spoke of first-class upgrades, and standby and gate information as possibilities for new location-based features integrated with Passbook.

Asked about United Airlines’ experience to date with Apple Passbook, a spokesperson said: “We don’t have any specific numbers to share, but customer feedback has been positive.”

Meanwhile, Delta has been working on Passbook integration, but it awaits the next release of the Fly Delta app, which is expected before the end of December, a spokesperson says.

Lufthansa didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment about its 3-month track record with Passbook.