As someone who is about to get on a plane tomorrow, this article from eMarketer caught my eye. In February 2012, SITA and Airline Business published the "Airline IT Trends Survey 2012," which showed that only half of the surveyed airlines offered mobile check-in services.
For those that do offer it though, they are moving beyond check-in to include other services such as tracking missing baggage or re-booking flights. There is also an opportunity for airlines to use passengers' personal smartphones and tablets for in-flight entertainment, reducing the cost necessary for an airline to maintain its own in-flight entertainment equipment and packages.
Beyond making passengers' lives easier (which is certainly helpful from an airline customer satisfaction perspective), using mobile devices for check-in and other services or for in-flight entertainment, allows airlines to open up ad space for advertising partners. This ad space could be very targeted, based on what time of day it is, where the flight is going, and what type of passengers tend to be on the flight (e.g. business or leisure travelers). These passengers are a captive audience, and being able to interact with them on a more personal level and incorporate some advertising might bring some extra revenue to the ailing airline industry.
On a personal note, one company that I think has a particularly good mobile app is Delta. I was in San Francisco in January and woke up to a text message that my flight later that day had been cancelled. I opened the Delta app to find the customer service number to call, and found that the app had already rebooked me on another flight, and had put me in business class. While I think the business class upgrade was a fluke, I was pleased to see how easy the app made it to deal with what could have been a pretty thorny situation.
eMarketer.com article: Airlines Take Mobile Service Beyond Check-In
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