Soon you'll be able to use your iPhone to pay for in-flight food and drinks

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JetBlue has announced it will be the first airline to allow passengers to pay for food and drinks using Apple Pay, according to USA Today.

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Starting next week, passengers on select JetBlue flights with an iPhone 6 or iPhone 6 Plus will be able to purchase in-flight amenities including seat upgrades in only a few seconds.

Once the Apple Watch launches in April, JetBlue will accept that too.

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Flight attendants are also getting an upgrade: JetBlue will swap out the old credit card point-of-sale devices for iPad Minis equipped with an NFC-sensing case and credit card sensor. That means you'll be able to order a drink simply by holding your iPhone 6 up to flight attendant's iPad Mini and holding down a finger to your phone's TouchID fingerprint sensor.

There also won't be any paper receipts, as passengers will get a copy of their receipt emailed to them instead.

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Apple Pay JetBlue

USA Today

JetBlue's NFC-enabled iPad Minis for flight attendants.


It's all part of Apple's goal to (eventually) replace your wallet with Apple Pay.

Eddy Cue, Apple's senior vice president for Internet software and services, is hopeful that more airlines will adopt Apple Pay once JetBlue gets the ball rolling.

"Somebody else doing it always puts pressure on the other guy," Cue told USA Today. "Most people would prefer not to carry cash or worry about cash. There's a lot of opportunity there."

JetBlue plans to expand Apple Pay to all flights by June, but for now you'll only be able to use your iPhone 6 to pay for things on flights between JFK and Los Angeles or San Francisco.

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You can see what paying for something at 35,000 feet will look like in the video below.