American Airlines Is Beta-Testing Boarding Push Notifications

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As a frequent traveler who often works from airport lounges, it's a pet peeve of mine to pack up and head to the boarding gate to find that either there's a delay, or gate agents started boarding early and there's a line on the jet bridge. So, I particularly appreciate flying with airlines like Delta and United that notify passengers through their app when the boarding process has started.

Now, American Airlines is finally catching up in this passenger-friendly regard. As first shared by Jamie Larounis of The Forward Cabin, American Airlines' app now has push boarding notifications — at least for some passengers:

I checked with American Airlines about the rollout of this feature, as it's not showing as a feature in the latest version of the AA app. An American Airlines spokesperson confirmed that this feature is currently only available to beta testers of the AA app, both on Android and iOS. While AA travelers are going to have to wait a little longer to get this feature, it's good news that it's on its way.

One of the concerns raised about this feature is whether or not it's solely based on the scheduled boarding time, rather than being a true alert of the boarding process being started. The good news is that the push notification is sent out when the first passenger boarding pass is scanned at the boarding door.

One feature that's live for all AA app users as of the April 17 update: notification history. While this is a relatively minor add, it's nice to have a place where you can check your notification history from the past 24 hours -- whether you accidentally dismissed a notification, or so you can see the rolling delays of a flight.