Getting into the air has never been so quick: from March 9, the opening day of CeBIT, passengers of the second-largest German domestic airline dba will be able to complete the check-in and boarding procedures for their flight using their mobile phone. The only requirement is that passengers must have an MMS-enabled phone.

Anyone who registers for the new service in the online flight reservation will receive his or her boarding card around three hours before take-off, in the form of a 2D barcode sent to his or her mobile handset. Using this barcode, dba customers can go directly to the departure gate, where the barcode is read by a scanner. The service offers passengers enormous time-saving benefits, as they no longer have to go to the check-in counter and do not need a paper boarding card at the gate either.

dba is offering this innovative service to customers in March exclusively on the Munich-Hanover route; further domestic routes are set to follow.

Passengers with a T-Mobile MDA or Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) can also manage their entire trip conveniently via dba's PDA portal (pda.flydba.com) while on the move: from booking their flight, to any flight changes, to checking in and boarding - in a flexible, mobile and paperless fashion! The new services are part of a marketing collaboration between T-Mobile and dba.

Successful start: seat reservation by text message since December 2005

For passengers who do not yet own an MMS-enabled phone, dba has offered an SMS seat reservation service since December 2005 - enabling mobile phone users on all mobile radio networks to secure their favorite seat. A customer who registers for this text message service when booking his or her flight on flydba.com simply has to enter his or her mobile phone number. Approx. three hours before take-off, dba automatically sends the passenger a seat reservation by text message to his or her mobile phone.

If the passenger accepts the seat offered, he or she will receive a confirmation text message showing the seat reserved for the dba flight. The passenger gets his or her boarding card at the dba check-in machines or counters at the airport.