The future of air travel: self service

July 9, 11:59 AMOrlando Airlines ExaminerHeather Mark

Previous Next

Comment Print Email RSS Subscribe

Subscribe

Get alerts when there is a new article from the Orlando Airlines Examiner. Read Examiner.com's terms of use.

Email Address   Include other special offers from Examiner.com Terms of Use

Self service is the future of air travel. (Sean Munson, Flickr)

$8 online booking fee. $3.50 passenger facilities charge. $10 a day for parking. $25 to check a bag. $10 "convenience fee" to speak with a ticket counter representative. $4 for a Diet Coke. $9.95 for inflight Wi-Fi. You can give it a fancy name like "a-la-carte" services, but let's be honest, there is very little "service" in the airline business anymore.

Which is why it should come as no surprise that more than half of air travelers want greater self-service options. The 2009 IATA Corporate Air Travel Survey (CATS) says so.

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) is working on initiatives to put more control into the passengers' hands, reduce costs for airlines and make the process faster for everyone. The Fast Travel Programme has four projects in the works.

Fast Travel: Bags ready-to-go

By using a self service kiosk to print out luggage tags, passengers simply deliver the bags to the airline agent to be weighed. Bag tag kiosks will be available to passengers who are not checked in or those who have checked in online.

Fast Travel: Document scanning

At the bag tag kiosks, passengers will also be able to scan their passports or other government issued forms of identification. This cuts out the middle-man at the ticket counter, rapidly moving passengers to security and to their gates.

Fast Travel: Self boarding

Have you ridden the subway recently? In order to access the train platform, passengers must pass through an automated sliding-door mechanism. The doors don't open unless the passenger sends their ticket through a scanner. IATA wants to implement similar devices at boarding gates, thereby eliminating gate agents.

Fast Travel: Bag recovery

When luggage doesn't arrive at its final destination, rather than wait for a baggage service agent, passengers can enter their information into a baggage recovery kiosk.