If you are a frequent flyer, you have probably developed some kind of strategy to make checking in to your flights while on the go somewhat bearable. But mobile travel app Worldmate , which was acquired by Carlson Wagonlit Travel last year, now makes it a snap to check in to your flights in a few seconds. The service notifies you when you can check in to flights and uses the trip info you’ve already imported into the app to pre-populate many of the fields for the most popular airlines. For now, this feature is only available in the iOS app (both the free and $9.99 Gold version), but WorldMate CEO Amir Kirshenboim told me it’s soon coming to the company’s Android app , too.
The cool thing about the feature is that WorldMate developer Alon Tidhar, who built the first version of this tool during his 20 percent time at the company, found a way to combine the native iOS interface with the airlines’ web-based check-in pages so you can drag and drop information from a small sidebar menu directly into the check-in form. Given the arcane numbers you usually have to type into these forms, that can easily shave a few minutes off the usual process. While WorldMate could obviously hand code support for the most popular sites, this drag-and-drop tool now allows the company to support every web-based check-in form. Here is what this looks like in practice: As Kirshenboim told me, the company surveyed its users recently, and a basic version of the check-in tool — which the company launched quietly a few weeks ago to test this feature — is already among the most popular features in the app. The drag-and-drop menu the company is adding now, however, takes this a bit further. WorldMate, it’s worth noting, is still very much in charge of developing its own apps and making deals with third-party travel services, even after the acquisition. Carlson Wagonlit, Kirshenboim told me, gives the company a lot of freedom and the resources to continue to build out its apps to fulfill its mission to become “the ultimate virtual travel assistant.”
