Delta Air Lines is testing a plan to allow you to eliminate one more carry-on item: your paper boarding pass.

Starting Tuesday, the Atlanta-based carrier is launching an electronic boarding pass option for passengers on domestic flights out of New York's LaGuardia Airport. Delta plans to launch the electronic boarding pass in Atlanta by the end of the year.

It will allow passengers to use Web-enabled mobile phones and devices to check-in online at mobile.delta.com. They will download an electronic boarding pass with a bar code that can be scanned at the security checkpoint and boarding gate.

Houston-based Continental Airlines in December launched a similar electronic boarding pass program, now available at a handful of airports it serves. Northwest Airlines, with which Delta has plans to merge, added an electronic boarding pass in May for passengers traveling out of Indianapolis.

Delta, like Continental and Eagan, Minn.-based Northwest, is working under a Transportation Security Administration pilot program.

The TSA will use handheld scanners to read the bar codes, which are similar to bar codes on the back of Georgia driver's licenses. The electronic boarding pass will not be available for Delta Shuttle passengers.

Henry Harteveldt, travel industry analyst at Forrester Research, said his firm's research shows about 41 percent of business travelers have a Web-enabled mobile phone or device, and six of 10 said they want to be able to use them for boarding passes.

Delta and other airlines already offer a mobile check-in option, but it requires passengers to print out a paper boarding pass using their own computers or an airport kiosk.

Delta expects the mobile-device option to appeal to time-strapped business travelers.

"The business traveler market is going to become even more important to airlines as the leisure travelers decrease in numbers because of the higher cost of flying," Harteveldt said. "Airlines need to do everything they can to keep the business traveler on their planes."

Long term, allowing passengers to switch to boarding passes on mobile devices could save airlines money by cutting back the need for more airport kiosks, Harteveldt said. But the primary reason Delta is starting the program is to attract customers.

"The paperless process appeals very much to business travelers, and New York probably has the highest percentage of business travelers going through of any airport we service," said Josh Weiss, managing director of delta.com. "But we're working very closely with TSA to bring the process to Atlanta as quickly as possible."

Harteveldt said the electronic boarding pass can reduce "to a small degree" some of the hassle at security screening.

"At Hartsfield-Jackson, the lines practically stretch from Atlanta to Birmingham in the mornings at the security lanes. Anything that can speed people getting through will be beneficial," he said.

The electronic boarding pass comes as airlines try to drive more traffic to their Web sites and encourage passengers to use more self-service options, which can cut down on staffing and shorten lines at the airport. Delta has also added other Web capabilities such as online baggage check.

"We want to banish lines entirely from our operation," Weiss said.