Continental Airlines has jumped on board the "make an app" bandwagon. But unlike a lot of branded travel apps, this one is amazingly well designed.

At the heart of the app are all the things you'd expect from an airline app - flight booking, flight status and links to contact information.

But in designing their app, Continental went way beyond the ordinary - for starters, the app includes airport maps from Point Inside - one of my personal favorites. Inside the app, you can also check in, pull up your mobile boarding pass, view reservations and even enable push notifications of flight status messages.

They didn't even stop there - under the "more" button, users will find a currency converter, a DirectTV program schedule (for in-flight live TV), games, links to Presidents Club locations, a timetable, recent Continental Airlines Tweets and an overview of reservations.

I've seen an awful lot of travel apps, but Continental Airlines really shows people how an app should be - a huge amount of handy tools, and all the features a Continental traveler needs to access their reservations. Well done Continental!

All I can hope for is that United Airlines does something similar soon...

You'll find the free Continental Airlines app in the App Store, or through this iTunes link.

Gallery: Continental Airlines iPhone App

Filed under: Airlines, Airline Reviews