Alaska Airlines introduced the ubiquitous airport check-in kiosks 20 years ago, and now the airline is giving them the boot.
With the goal of making airport check-in more efficient—streamlining the process so that travelers move from the lobby to security quickly—the airline has officially announced plans to replace the kiosks with a new mobile self-service system. This means no more time waiting at the check-in desk or dealing with the hectic swarm of people surrounding kiosks.
“We realized the majority of our guests were doing most of the kiosk actions on their own phones, and we could reduce the congestion in our airports,” Charu Jain, Alaska Airlines senior vice president of innovation and merchandising, said in a recent statement.
With this new process, passengers will check in online, grab bag tags from i-Pad-based stations and drop luggage on a self-service bag drop. Bag drop stations are already active at eight of the airline's main airports; the kiosk phase-out and bag drop implementation is expected to be complete by the end of 2024.
Passengers not down with all the DIY technology will not be left out in the cold, however, as Alaska Airlines will have the option of a full-service check-in with an agent.