May I have your boarding pass, er, mobile?

Your cell phone may not be helpful for making a call in flight, but it’s about to come in handy at the airport beforehand. Cell phones and other mobile devices are on their way to replacing paper boarding passes.

The International Air Transport Association just announced a global standard for the bar code system, moving one step closer to fully shifting to bar-coded boarding passes by the end of 2010.

Mobile phone check-in enables airlines to send 2D bar codes directly to a passenger’s mobile phone, personal digital assistant or smart phone. Passengers simply register their mobile number with their airline at the time of booking to receive a text message with a 2D bar code, or instructions to download it. The bar code becomes the passenger’s boarding pass and it is read directly from the screen of the mobile device, eliminating paper completely from the check-in process.

Kudos for saving paper resources, since the plan eliminates the need to print traditional tickets or electronic tickets. But other potential problems are yet to be solved—everything from whether the system will work on older cell phones, to how to credit frequent flier miles, to the most important, security. In the U.S., ultimate approval will need to be given by the Transportation Security Administration, who currently requires that travelers show a photo ID and boarding pass before flying.

Already using bar-coded boarding passes (BCBP) are ANA in Japan and Spanair in Spain. Air Canada started testing the system on September 21, for their domestic flights and outward-bound international flights (not to the U.S.).