Check-in kiosks succeeding at easing passengers on board
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A year ago the American Airlines terminal at Logan International Airport was almost always a chaotic jumble of lines in the morning as passengers often waited 30 minutes to an hour to check in for the morning rush of flights.
Now, those lines have largely vanished, partly because of scheduling changes American has made at its hubs but mostly because passengers in ever-growing numbers are using self-service machines to speed through the check-in process.
Instead of waiting in line for an agent, passengers can now step up to a machine and get a boarding pass, check their bags, select a seat, upgrade to first class, or stand by for an alternate flight. The average transaction time is two minutes.
American now has 700 self-service machines at 85 airports, including 23 at Logan, the most of any airline. At Logan, the machines are checking in roughly 60 percent of those passengers who are flying domestically and have electronic tickets. It's one of those rare examples where technology not only improves the customer experience but also dramatically reduces the airline's labor costs. (Only one agent is needed for every four machines.)
"Most of the time you're trading these things off against each other," said John Samuel, vice president of customer technology at American. "That's not the case here."
In fact, the machines are fast becoming a selling point for airlines. Passengers are beginning to realize that an airline with an adequate number of check-in kiosks is going to make flying less stressful.
According to the Massachusetts Port Authority, which operates Logan, United is right behind American in the kiosk count with 22 machines; Continental has 18, US Airways 16, Delta 12, Northwest eight, and Alaska Air two. Midwest Airlines is preparing to install its first machine.
Massport says airlines at Logan are using their machines to check in anywhere from 50 to 70 percent of their domestic passengers with electronic tickets, but the percentages are even higher elsewhere. Samuel said American's kiosks in Des Moines are handling 80 percent, the airline's highest penetration in the nation.
Airlines are doing everything they can to let customers handle more of their transactions. Like many other airlines, American is now allowing passengers to obtain a boarding pass and select a seat online from either work or home. Passengers with bags can bring the boarding pass to a skycap and have them checked. Samuel says he is working on ways to further speed up that process.
American is also trying to eliminate reasons for dealing with a person during check-in. The airline just eliminated paper tickets on domestic flights, leaving only international travelers, unaccompanied minors, and those who owe money or need to change a reservation standing in line waiting for an agent.
Fewer screeners
Just when technology is shortening lines at airline counters, staffing cuts are likely to lengthen the lines at airport security checkpoints.
The US Transportation Security Administration recently announced that it intends to eliminate 6,000 airport screeners, or 11 percent of the total, by the end of September. The job cuts are expected to save $280 million.
Officials said 243 airports would lose screeners, with the average airport reduction being 12.6 percent. At 151 airports, including Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket, and Provincetown, the number of screeners will actually increase slightly.
In sheer numbers, the biggest reductions are at New York's John F. Kennedy Airport, which is scheduled to lose 396 screeners; Newark International Airport, 273; Atlanta's Hartsfield International Airport, 263, and Chicago O'Hare, 170.
The number of screeners at Logan is scheduled to drop from 1,047 to 997, a loss of 50, or 5 percent. Manchester Airport in New Hampshire is losing 84 screeners, a whopping 42 percent of its total. T.F. Green Airport in Warwick, R.I., is losing 49 screeners, or 18 percent.
Seating mystery
Obtaining an airline seat assignment is usually a routine formality, but for Joan E. Ledoux of Marlborough they have been hard to get recently.
Ledoux wasn't able to get seat assignments for her party when she made a reservation last July for a flight in February to Nassau. When the original Boston-Atlanta leg of the flight was changed in November, she tried to get seat assignments again but failed.
She and her fellow travelers showed up three hours before takeoff and were told they would have to get their seats at the gate. They did get seats, but not together.
"Is this what we can expect in the future?" she asked.
I contacted Delta several times on her behalf but the airline wasn't able to shed much light on the situation. Officials said seats may be reserved on a first-come, first-served basis up to 331 days before departure, but in some cases -- such as when flights are severely overbooked -- seats are restricted and not preassigned.
Maybe Ledoux is just unlucky. On another recent flight, she said she was preassigned a seat on the first three legs of the trip but not the fourth.
Bruce Mohl can be reached at mohl@globe.com.
