Lufthansa has boarding passes by e-mail for overseas flights

— -- Electronic boarding passes, which let travelers use a barcode sent to their smartphones to clear security and board, have previously been limited to domestic and regional fliers. Lufthansa says it became the first airline to introduce the service on intercontinental flights, when it used the technology this month for its Frankfurt-Vancouver, British Columbia, route. The German carrier plans to extend its use to more long-haul routes over the next few weeks.

Since Lufthansa introduced the service last summer, the number of passengers opting to have their mobile boarding pass sent to them by text messaging or e-mail has grown to about 75,000 passengers a month, it says.

•Air traffic continues

to decrease in Europe, with 13.6% fewer passengers traveling through European airports in February than a year earlier, according to Airports Council International-Europe. "The double whammy of falling aviation and commercial revenues is hitting Europe's airports more and more severely with each passing month," says Olivier Jankovec, director general of ACI-Europe.

Among the airports hardest hit: Milan Malpensa (-33%), Moscow Domodedovo (-26%), Barcelona (-22%), Madrid Barajas (-17%), Copenhagen (-19%) and Brussels (-19%).

•To boost the

region's flower business, Los Angeles International has opened a 12,700-square-foot refrigeration facility, the largest of its kind at any West Coast airport. The $1.1 million facility, built by Mercury Air Cargo, will accommodate up to 8,500 tons of flowers flown in from Latin America by LAN Cargo, a subsidiary of Chile's LAN Airlines.

Previously, flowers were flown from Bogota, Colombia, to Miami International and trucked to the West Coast. The whole trip could take as long as 60 hours. Flying them directly to LAX takes about 15 hours.

The airport says retail flower prices will drop in the region as a result.

The new facility will "establish LAX as a new West Coast hub for the flower trade," the airport says in a statement.