Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air are debuting three mobile applications in an effort to retain customer loyalty and give travel-warrior customers the tools they want most.

The new applications are designed for the Apple's iPhone, Research In Motion's BlackBerry and Microsoft's Windows Mobile users. The company claims that it offers consumers access to the most frequently used functions they need on the day of flight.

?Alaska Airlines' goal is to make traveling easier for our customers,? said Mark Guerette, ecommerce director at Alaska Airlines, Seattle. ?Our immediate goal is to support day of flight functions for the road-warrior-type of customer and simplify the travel experience for our customers.

?In the months to come, Alaska Airlines customers will be seeing more in the way of mobile development designed specifically to meet a person's day-of-travel needs,? he said.

?Including making changes to existing reservation, accessing airport information and potentially purchasing tickets.?

Here is a screen grab of the application:

Travel efficient
Consumers can check their flight status information, flight schedules, flight alerts and check in 1 to 24 hours prior to their scheduled departure.

Additionally, consumers can use a ?My Trips? feature to view itineraries, change seats, check their upgrade status and add an Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan number to a reservation.

Travelers can also access and download their electronic boarding passes.

This is not the airline?s first foray into mobile. Alaska Airline?s recently introduced electronic boarding passes in seven cities where each electronic boarding pass displays an encrypted bar code along with the passenger and flight information, which is verified by Transportation Security Administration agents at the security checkpoint (see story).

Alaska Airlines has a mobile-optimized site, but claims that the applications are custom built for each smartphone device for more convenient access. 

?We've announced Alaska's mobile-optimized Web site in several of Alaska Airlines mileage plan communications and other customer correspondence,? Mr. Guerette said.

?We promoted our mobile technology on social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook and will be promoting it in our inflight magazine and through other channels in the future,? he said.

Here is another screen grab of the application:

Mobile flyers
With the application, consumers can also create a flight alert for any Alaska or Horizon flight and get notified of flight updates.

Travelers can set up a My Account user ID and password to view upcoming trips and review their itinerary details, seat assignments and add a mileage program number.

?Our most frequent fliers are using mobile to make their traveling experience easier and Alaska Airlines wants to help them get from curb to gate quickly and efficiently,? Mr. Guerette said.

?Mobile is an important to us more to retain customer loyalty and give our travel warrior customers the tools they want most,? he said.