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Self-Boarding Gates Debut At Las Vegas Airport

by Grant Martin (RSS feed) on Aug 16th 2012 at 2:00PM

The process from booking to flying has been increasingly streamlined as airlines cut costs and invest in infrastructure. Ticketing, baggage drop-off, seat selection and a variety of other services have all been simplified, often to the point where there are only a few staff members handling a massive check-in line.

Where airline staff is still critical is at the boarding gate, where upgrades, ticket changes, passenger loading and a variety of other issues are still handled. To handle that dynamic environment, anywhere between one and a handful of airline agents is necessary for operation.

If the Swiss group Kaba has its way though, those staff members may start to disappear. The company has designed an automated check-in device that scans your boarding pass and allows passage from the terminal to the aircraft – all without interfacing with an agent. It's a tool that could speed up the boarding process as well as cut down on costly staff necessary at the gate.

Already in limited operation in Europe, Kaba's first automatic gate is now operating at the MaCarran airport in Las Vegas, and if the trial is successful then distribution will expand.

And what happens when you bring a mobile boarding pass to the gate or the system doesn't automatically process your ticket? At this point, there will still be staff on hand to manually process your boarding. But if this pilot program is successful, you can expect a lot fewer staff to help in the future.

Filed under: Business, United States, Airports

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Moony Aug 18th 2012 9:49AM

Um... so if I drop my ticket anyone can pick it up and get on in my place? I am hesitant about this not just for that reason but also because 1) we are loosing human connection more and more with today's technology and people are forgetting how to interact with others and 2) machines can break down 3) if you have to have someone there in case it breaks down you are defeating the purpose

GB Aug 18th 2012 10:14AM

I think I'll start buying a cheap ticket and jump on the plane going where i want to go--bypassing the check in kiosk.

Adele H. Aug 18th 2012 10:25AM

Just another way to create more unemployed workers. Let's buy a machine and fire six employees (per gate/for three shifts).

Plainer Aug 18th 2012 10:47AM

Same goes for auto checkers at the supermarkets. Empolyees at the store encourage me to use them, which I do when I have only 5-10 items but most of the time I have over 50 and much prefer to go through the "human" checkout counter to do the work for me. One of the posters has a point about this new technology : it's designed more for efficiency, not for security. By the way, Las Vegas also introduced the new bill acceptors on slot machines replacing the old coin slot machines about 10 years ago. When you won the old way, you had to lug all those coins to the cashier to exchange for bills. Today you receive a printed receipt and take it to the cash machine to get your money. The downside to that was the casinos laid-off workers in the cage opertions in the thousands across the state. Those "satellite" cash kiosks you used see throughout the casinos are no longer around. I was told cage operations were very labor intensive up-front and behind the doors physically counting their daily take requiring a 24/7 staff. Unemployment rate in Nevada is still over 12%. I guess Vegas will continue to see more lay-offs if this new technologically becomes standard equipment.

Savannah5 Aug 18th 2012 11:56AM

This is a dangerous idea. We need agents to notice suspicious behavior.

Maggie Aug 18th 2012 2:50PM

You mean like they did on 911?

Robert Kirch Aug 18th 2012 11:40AM

This works in the perfect world, but go to one of those self check in machines when your flight has been cancelled and see where the "self" machine gets you especially if you are a once a year traveler.

Sassy Aug 18th 2012 12:35PM

Great so more unemployed workers. We don't have jobs for all the people as it is and now these stupid companys are finding ways to get rid of more. As a nation we have to all come together and tell these compies to stop all this crap. Another case where the rich want cut out the little guy.

Guess all us Americans will need to move to a foreign country to be able to work and support our families.

Jerry Cook Aug 18th 2012 2:42PM

Don't pack your bags just yet. Most countries I've been in have laws that prevent foreigners from getting jobs unless they have qualifications not available in their country or if the company the want to work for is based in U.S.

Jerry Cook Aug 19th 2012 1:31PM

Don't pack your bags just yet. Most of the countries I've been in have laws that prevent foreigners from getting jobs unless you have skills that their own people don't have or the company you will be working for is based in the U.S.
Do you think that might be 'cause they have their own unemployment problems?

Clifton Aug 18th 2012 1:01PM

In the comments, there has been concern expressed about job loss due to automation. Many are afraid when a new technology causes us to lose jobs. But that's what technology does, and it's what makes our economy more productive. For most businesses, labor is 40% of their cost. Reducing that cost is a very big deal.

Let's think about this, I live in Michigan. We used to take our pop bottles to the grocery store, the clerk would check and count them, and then give us cash, 10 cents for each pop bottle that we recycled.

Now, I just go to the supermarket feed the bottles into a machine, which automatically separates the bottles for the cans, counts them, and gives me a receipt which I take to the cash register.

Do we really want to go back to the time when we took our bottles to the corner store and waited in line for the clerk to count our bottles? I think not.

Growing economies is about creative destruction. We find new, cheaper, easier, less labor-intensive ways to do things. When I took college accounting courses, we wrote the numbers on green ledger paper and did the math with calculator, Now I just plug the numbers into a spreadsheet that does the math for me.

Do we want to go back to green ledger paper? I don't think so.

Also, keep in mind that creative descrution of capitalism, while eliminating some jobs, creates new ones. I don't need to hire someone to add up numbers on a spreadsheet. There is no longer a need for accounting clerks. Those jobs are lost. But new jobs are created for the people who design the spreadsheet program, and for the people that manufacture the computer that I use.

Necoffeehound Aug 18th 2012 2:58PM

Let us also not forget how many people lost their jobs when Thomas Edison invented the light bulb but how many new jobs were created.
Lost jobs: (gas light fixture makers pipe layers, etc.)
New jobs created: too many to count

grannyem Aug 18th 2012 2:24PM

It be a lot faster to board the planes if they would load from back to front, that way people don't constantly bump into each other. They currently have the ones in front go first and then everyone else has to work around them. I have been on one plane where there were a lot of first class passengers ordering coffee and otherwise demanding to be waited on. The attendants couldn't do their job with the others because of this. It slowed things down really badly. People were bumping into each other. It really slows things down when the ones in front are constantly rearranging their bags, going to the restroom and generally getting in everyone else's way.

sloopie1 Aug 18th 2012 5:50PM

Uh...no. What holds up the boarding process is every Tom, Dick, & Harry trying to bring all the oversize bags on board and trying to force these into the overhead compartments. Then you have all the little grannies bringing everything they own in shopping bags on board and then the students with their carry on and then the backpacks that stick out three feet behind them - again, trying to get all this mess into the overheads. IF the agents would enforce the oversize bags (everything has to fit into the size rite) then there wouldn't be holdups. Why should I have to board "last" when I fly all the time and have earned my right to board first? And first class passengers don't "demand" - the flight attendents do serve these passengers because they have paid a premium fee to fly. Try it sometime, you just might like it.