Continental Becomes Latest Airline To Embrace Cashless Cabins

December 3, 2009 at 4:12 PM | by Omri | Comments (0)

It looks like we're going to go through the same thing with cashless cabins that we went through with in-flight wifi. First there's the trickle of LCC innovators, then the major airlines follow, then at the end we start writing our stories with lines like "Airline X finally caught up to everyone else..." The LCC innovation period probably ended when Southwest went cashless. Then over the summer United and American switched over, pushing us toward the end of the second stage.

Any day now we're going to have to switch over from congratulating airlines on going plastic-only to mocking them for not doing it earlier. Congratulations are therefore hereby extended to Continental Airlines for getting in just under the wire. Good job guys:

Continental Airlines said Monday that credit and debit cards will be accepted for purchases onboard most its aircraft starting Tuesday. Flight attendants will use new handheld devices to process the card payments for purchases of alcoholic beverages and headsets. Houston-based Continental said in a statement that the new cashless system will be available on all Continental Airlines mainline flights, except for service to and from China.

You'll still be able to use cash on certain Continental-opreated shuttles, but even that's going to stop being an option some time in 2010. Among other things, this means we'll need a new trick for avoiding in-flight drinking and the accompanying in-flight hangovers. Too bad. The old trick of not carrying cash fit really well with our lifestyle of not having any cash.

[Photo: G�rkan Seng�n]

Related Stories:
· Continental is latest airline to shift toward cashless cabin [USA Today]
· Cashless Cabins [Jaunted]
· Continental Airlines Coverage [Jaunted]

Jaunted

Select a Destination:

Cashless Cabins / Onboard Services / Airlines / Airline News / Continental / → All Tags