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Self-service kiosks are starting to change the airport environment, led by a surge of installations among the major US carriers keen to cut both lines and costs
Kiosks, the automated self-service check-in devices, have begun to tame the winding lines of passengers at Atlanta's Hartsfield International Airport. At its hub here, Delta Air Lines now has some 100 check-in kiosks, where customers can get a boarding pass, print a bag tag or choose a new itinerary.
Delta's Atlanta installation is not the first kiosk deployment, a title held by hi-tech pioneer Alaska Airlines. Nor is it the only such migration toward automating the front-end of the airport. Many of the US majors, including fellow cash-strapped giant American Airlines, have highlighted self-service check-in technology as a part of their cost restructuring efforts in a weaken revenue environment. Others such as Continental, Northwest, United Airlines and US Airways have also deployed kiosks throughout their systems.
At the same time, kiosks are spreading rapidly through Europe and Japan, and more recently to the Middle East, although self-service check-in for international travel has challenges of its own.
What Delta's move does represent is the largest commitment so far by a network carrier to the kiosk technology. Coming when some question the future dimension of hub airports, it represents so deep a financial and even cultural commitment that the transformation of the airport can now be called a major tactic in airline strategy.
David Melnik, founder of Florida-based kiosk manufacturer Kinetics, says that "passenger self-service is the core" of the airport process, making it a ripe candidate for the process re-engineering that is changing airline structures and organisations. His firm counts nine of the 15 largest carriers as customers. Melnik says: "The hub-and-spoke system is not going to go away, so making hubs manageable for the passenger is going to be a key way for an airline to differentiate itself to the public and get some of the efficiencies it needs to compete with point-to-point, low-cost carriers."
For the people leading the Delta effort, the project is more than a question of technology. Rich Cordell, Delta senior vice-president for airport customer services calls it a "transformation" and one that "not only pushes technology closer to the airport's front doors",...