Airlines sometimes suffer of the “we always done it this way” and also of technical debt limiting what is possible and what is not. One of my pet peeves is the whole idea of “checking-in”. From the moment I buy a ticket and a seat, why is it then necessary to check-in? And there is more to this, let me explain…
I understand that airlines need passenger lists, for regulatory and safety reasons. And for technical reasons dating back a lot, the computers managing those lists can only manage such lists a few hours before the flight takes place.
Those are similar reasons to those being needle printers using rolls of “carbon copy” paper and why check-in and gate agents use old terminal-like user interfaces. If you ever rebooked a flight at the counter, you’ve probably noted how long this takes and how many typing it involves. Should a rebooking not be something like drag-and-dropping the passenger from one flight to the other and confirm the pricing in a pop-up window?
Well, airlines are often running old, legacy systems, which sometimes belong to airports or other organisations. And yes, such systems are deployed worldwide and are sometimes used by multiple airlines, which makes it complicated, but this problem is old and technology moves at always increasing paces…
Do you remember when check-in was only possible two hours before the flight? The advent of online check-in 24 hours and then 30 hours before the flight was a revolution.
And now, AirAsia calls for check-in 14 days before flight! So this is possible? Other low-cost airlines allows this too – because their systems are more recent and more capable.
Will other airlines follow? What about legacy European airlines?
It is not the first time that low-cost or non-European airlines introduce cool features and then force airlines to follow.
The Middle-East carriers understood, for example, how a stop over could be more than just the time required to connect. Buy a flight via Dubai with Emirates and you will be offered to stay a few days in the city at no extra cost. Same thing via Frankfurt on Lufthansa? Nope.
Emirates also introduced an option to use miles or points to pay for part of your flight tickets. Before they did, airlines always told their customers that they had to pay fully with miles or with cash, but mixing was not possible.
One year later, almost all airlines made it possible…
Will check-in days and weeks before the flight become the new standard? Will check-in fully disappear, to be replaced by a simple bag drop process and check at boarding? I do hope so!
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