Soon the end of check-in kiosks in airports?

Due to the evolution of the uses of new technologies and to decrease the time spent at check-in, Alaska Airlines will start to remove its check-in kiosks in airports. A precursor? Certainly, but this is not necessarily very good news in the short term.

Alaska Airlines, always a pioneer

This announcement is all the more surprising since Alaska Airlines was the first airline to set up check-in kiosks in airports to avoid passengers having to go through the counter (as far as ticket vending machines are concerned, it was apparently American Airlines in the 1970s).

The reason? Of course reduce waiting time and improve the passenger experience. And certainly save on personnel costs.

But an announcement that is also interesting coming from an airline that had thus opened the way in the matter because it leads to wonder if it foreshadows a global trend.

Digital, passenger experience, ecology and savings

What are the airline’s motivations this time? About the same: less wasted time (experience), less paper (ecology) and of course an economic dimension: less terminals and less paper means less costs.

Although the airline specifies that dedicated baggage check-in kiosks will replace them, which may raise questions about the real savings (Alaska does not have such kiosks to date).

But the main motivation is technological and it’s what justifies everything else: everyone has a smartphone, many already use it to check-in, so the kiosk is no longer necessary. The passenger can do everything before arriving at the airport.

The danger of digital illiteracy

The reasoning is unquestionably logical when we see how our phones have become the center of our digital lives, so much so that we often travel “paperless”.

But it is also a reductive reasoning and we see it well when we try to digitalize 100% of a service. We have a recent example in France with tax declarations: since almost everyone does it on the web, it is useless to maintain the possibility to do it by paper forms.

The nuance lies in the “almost everyone”. We still see real distress situations that remind us that even if 90% of the population adheres to this change, it is a trauma and a real problem for a part of the population that tend to be called “the digital illiterates”. Elderly people most often but also people suffering from a handicap or not having internet at home.

Do 100% of the passengers who fly have a smartphone? No, but almost.

Are 100% of them, beyond using Whatsapp and Facebook, able to use their phone to follow a check-in process? I can assure you that it is not.

What to do with them?

And even if I am part of the ideal target for this kind of innovation I still have a little apprehension: in case of loss, breakage, breakdown of the phone or even if its battery leaves me during the trip, what to do? Having found myself with a dead battery in a train station with both my ticket and my travel references in my phone, I can promise you that it is not funny at all. The proof: Olivier’s habit of always carrying a hard copy of his hotel reservations and printing his boarding passes at the airport even if he checked-in online, a precaution I never take.

Linking the fact of being able to travel without problems not only to the possession of a device but especially to the fact that it is available and functional during the whole trip is a bet that can be risky, at least nowadays.

Unavoidable in the long term

Don’t put words in my mouth: what Alaska Airlines does today, everyone else will do tomorrow. Maybe not by removing all the kiosks at once, but by reducing their number little by little, especially for the majors for whom 5 to 10% of “problem” passengers represent far too many exceptions to be managed by humans for the business to be that profitable.

As for the fact that a passenger may find himself without a functional device a few hours before his flight, this is a risk that must be dealt with.

The question is therefore not the direction taken but the speed at which we go.

Bottom line

In 2024 Alaska Airlines will begin to eliminate its airport check-in kiosks. A trend that seems unstoppable for the entire industry, even if we must be wary of the belief that everyone is totally comfortable with the Internet and a smartphone for uses a little more complicated than messaging and social networks.

And what do you think about the removal of check-in kiosks in airports? Tell us in the comments.

Image : check-in kiosks by Wirestock Creators via Shutterstock.