American Airlines today announced that airport employees using the airline's mobile YADA device – which stands for Your Assistance Delivered Anywhere – are even better equipped to serve customers anywhere in the airport with the additional ability to print boarding passes.

Customers in Dallas/Fort Worth; New York (both at JFK and LaGuardia); Chicago; Miami; Boston; Albuquerque N.M.; St. Louis; and San Juan, Puerto Rico, can now be aided by airport employees anywhere in the airport.  The mobile YADA device enables airport employees to provide real-time information on flights, gates, standby lists, print bag tags and boarding passes, and even pull up maps of other airports.

"YADA is a major step in the enhanced customer experience at American Airlines and is part of a suite of real-time technologies that have transformed our operations," said Mark DuPont, Vice President – Airport Services Planning. "Today, customers interact with airport employees primarily at the counters in front of and behind security.  YADA allows us to better assist customers anywhere in the airport, especially during weather-related, off-schedule operations when lines can become long."

"This is a prime example of American's technology leadership as YADA provides our airport employees with more real-time mobile functionality than any other airline," said Monte Ford, Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer.  "Our customers are mobile by definition, and when we can equip our employees with real-time mobile technology that enables them to make better decisions on behalf of the customer, we all benefit.  Our airport employees do an excellent job interacting with customers and meeting their needs – YADA enables them to come out from behind the counter and provide real-time information, bag tags, boarding passes and other answers wherever the customer is in the airport." 

American's goal is to eventually have a YADA device at every gate, making it part of a message suite that gives the airline the ability to communicate quickly with agents across the system in the event of an off-schedule operation such as a weather event, that can cause flight delays and cancellations.

American launched a pilot of YADA in Boston in Summer 2009 using Logan and Boston-area travelers as the first in the country to help American test this technology.