For me it is less about being concerned about my device running out of batteries. It's more about some weird incompatibility between my device and the scanner.

It's one less thing to worry about when I just want to get on the plane. My paper ticket isn't going to lock before I get to the gate, or not be bright enough. I won't have to "play" with my ticket to keep it active and proper for the scanner.

> It's more about some weird incompatibility between my device and the scanner.

That's not a thing. They're literally just cameras looking for a QR code.

And unlocking your phone and adjusting brightness is pretty effortless, I dunno. I already do those things lots of times a day.

Its not effortless...and god forbid if your drop your smartphone and get it cracked. This headache is simply avoided with plain old paper reliability.

> and god forbid if your drop your smartphone and get it cracked

Then you print a boarding pass at the kiosk? But I've cracked a phone once in ten years, it's not really something I'm worried about.

And paper isn't reliable. For most people, you're much more likely to lose a random sheet of paper than for your phone to suddenly permanently stop working.

> Then you print a boarding pass at the kiosk?

Those kiosks are gone from many airports. You're going to have to wait in line to get anything printed. And if you fly Ryanair it will cost you over 50 euro.

In Europe yes. Other parts of the world don't charge for printing boarding passes and it's easy to find a kiosk.

In that - hopefully exceptionally rare case - the gate could just print you a boarding pass. It’s not a big deal.

I didn't know that. Based on what do they print a boarding pass, or perhaps rather: why don't they check {whatever the answer to the previous question is} at boarding instead of you having to hold onto a pass that apparently is a proxy for something else?

I've had a boarding pass reissued at the gate based on my passport.

Some airlines in Europe check both the boarding pass and the passport/identity card at the boarding gate, to ensure people haven't swapped boarding passes within the airport. I think I see this on flights outside the EU, but I'm not sure.

Speed.

It takes time to look up a passenger on a computer.

The plane will be delayed if they have to do that for everyone while boarding.

Hmm but what lookup does a human need to do? Identity documents have had chips for quite some years now so you just need to touch it to the reader and beep through, or for even older ones, they've had a machine-readable section since as long as I'm alive. A standardized government-issued passport is probably faster to read than a potentially dark and reflective phone screen or crinkled piece of paper, and equally fast in the case where the person presents a well-readable document. The gate doesn't even need to do any database lookup: it can locally store the list of the 200-odd names of passengers during boarding

I'm just speculating but if they can simply do a name+DOB-based lookup at a counter, it seems to me like the boarding pass thing might just be for historic reasons where people would feel weird if they are suddenly tracked based on personal details instead of a ticket

> That's not a thing. They're literally just cameras looking for a QR code.

And yet for me one time earlier this year said QR code on my Graphene OS phone scanned fine at the TSA checkpoint but refused to scan at the gate, leading to mayhem as the crew couldn't figure out for nearly an hour why the number of people sitting on the plane wasn't equal to the number of people who they registered as boarding.

I've had airline machines fail to scan the barcode on my poorly printed paper boarding passes (e.g. faded ink or unfortunate located gaps etc in the barcode area). The solution is simple, just type in the details off the BP into the terminal to look up my PNR and type the command to confirm I've boarded. I've seen this done for both paper and mobile boarding pass issues. Not a mobile issue but obviously poor staff training and problem solving which occurs with or without mobiles.

> It's more about some weird incompatibility between my device and the scanner.

I think I held up an entire flight for nearly an hour because the QR code on my Graphene OS Android phone scanned fine at the TSA checkpoint but didn't scan at all at the gate. They ended up letting me on the flight without properly registering that I boarded in their system. That triggered some crazy security hold that prevented the crew from obtaining permission to pull back from the gate.

When that happens (and note it happens to paper boarding passes as well) I've always seen gate agents simply type in the details off the boarding pass. E.g. name, sequence number, etc and do a manual entry that way. I've had this happen to me at least once, and the agent very quickly just typed in something in their terminal and it was all done with no fuss. Really surprised no one thought of doing this in your situation.

I’m gonna say something stupid — the chances of my phone running out of battery and me not being able to charge it is lower than me losing the paper ticket.

Not stupid at all. I think that's the case for most people.

It's easy to lose a random piece of paper. Whereas people are generally extremely aware of where their phone is at all times.

It's not that hard to maintain a random piece of paper, you do it with your ID, which presumably you do not keep on your phone. It is much harder to ensure an iPhone won't randomly be miscalibrated and shut off at 30%.

I do it with my ID because I've conditioned myself to check for it everytime I'm going to move places, or rather, check for my wallet, which usually has my ID inside it, but has burned me on a couple of ocassions

Also, some people do keep their ID on their phones, either directly on the back of the case (I've seen it more on young women, maybe because lack of pockets) or with something like a magnetic wallet

Louisiana has digital ID, I don't use it but my wife does and it seems to work OK. I think you can have your phone locked with the ID up, which is the only way I'd consider using it, anyhow.

Its been a while since I've heard any issues with it. I prefer the physical card still.

Not it's not hard, but it is significantly harder, and why introduce unnecessary additional complexity into my life?

My ID is in my wallet. A sheet of paper doesn't fit in my wallet. So I have to put the folded paper in a pocket, where it might fall out when I take out my gloves, or I forget if I put it in my backpack, and in which pocket, etc.

A sheet of paper is extra. My phone isn't. And I sure as heck don't bring a phone with low charge to the airport... when I know I'm probably going to be using it for hours... and I've got my charger with me anyways in case I somehow did.

My ID is not a random piece of paper. A boarding pass is.

I have never ever in my life lost my ID or my phone. I have lost paper boarding passes on several occasions.

The failure modes of a phone don't really matter; if the phone fails for some reason (still has never happened to me), I can always ask a gate agent to print me a boarding pass.

Word. I think I'll actually shut down if I'm further than 25 metres from my phone...

I don’t know why you keep calling it a “random” piece of paper? It’s really not hard to keep track of your physical boarding pass for a few hours.

It's not hard, certainly. But I have lost paper boarding passes a few times. I've never lost my phone, though.

I just like not having to keep track of an extra thing. Travel is already often stressful; having one fewer thing to keep on me and avoid losing is nice.

You could lose your phone, or even have it stolen.

I think of it as multitasking. A paper ticket means I can focus on reading etc on device, while the ticket can serve its purpose. I keep all pertinent materials in a pouch in front of me however so not hard to find.

At the airport? That’s fine. I’ll just talk to the agent and get a ticket if needed. I think these are just extreme cases that applies to extremely tiny percentage of people.

Apple Express Mode lets you use certain Wallet cards when the phone is very low battery and turned off.