Alaska Airlines recently initiated a three-year, $2.5 billion project to improve the airport experience at its hubs and focus cities such as Seattle, Portland, San Francisco and Los Angeles. As part of this project, the airline is looking to modernize the lobbying experience and as the company announced today, the most visible change here is the removal of the good old check-in kiosk.
Alaska is encouraging fliers to check in at home or on their smartphones and instead of the kiosks, the airline will introduce single-function iPad-based baggage tag stations where fliers can scan their boarding passes to get a baggage tag, and automatic baggage tags. drops. This baggage drop also marks the first time Alaska uses biometrics to authenticate travelers.
The airline has begun testing this system at a number of airports, including Palm Springs, in recent months, but is now announcing this wider rollout.
Image Credits: Alaska airlines
Charu Jain, Alaska’s senior VP of merchandising and innovation, stressed that Alaska was the first airline to put kiosks in the airport lobby and now wants to be the first to remove them. The airline, she said, is always looking for ways to eliminate pain points and the lobby experience remains one of them as travelers simply want to go through security and get to their gate.
“As we looked at what to do with that pain point, we started reshaping the lobby and looking at customer behavior and trends,” Jain said. “Everyone is using their mobile phone now. So we’re basically saying ‘goodbye to kiosks and hello smartphones’ and what that does is it creates a really easy way to connect and get through the lobby in five minutes or less.
Image Credits: Alaska airlines
She noted that today, across all the airports Alaska serves, about 70% of travelers check in before arriving at the airport (and in some places, that number is significantly higher). The company wants to increase that number to 90%. The idea of getting every flyer through the lobby in five minutes is also ambitious. However, Jain claims that users now have to enter their confirmation number at the kiosk and then perhaps pay for baggage and also select seats – then wait for the machine to print a boarding pass – all of which can take more than five minutes. Now, at some of the stations where the company has started using this system, fliers take about 45 seconds to print a baggage tag.
Image Credits: Alaska airlines
Interestingly, Alaska decided to opt for a consumer-level iPad connected to a printer for labeling bags, but Jain argues that this will allow the company to quickly replicate the experience. She noted that Alaska worked closely with Apple on this project. Alaska is already equipping all of its agents with iOS devices. “What this does is it creates this iOS ecosystem where all that technology can now talk to each other,” she explained. “So we not only connect the agents physically, but also through technology with our guests. And many of our guests also have Apple phones versus Android. It is also easy to change. Any change to the newsstand requires you to work with a salesperson and that takes about six weeks. This allows us to roll out changes very quickly and it is a very simple and good user experience.”
Image Credits: Alaska airlines
The new automated baggage drop will launch at a later date, but once available they will be very similar to Delta’s new biometric-based baggage drop. As with Delta’s system, Alaska will also work with the TSA to enable biometric confirmation that it’s really you who dropped off a bag (although you can also scan your ID or work with an agent).
It’s worth noting that Alaska is clearly aware that not everyone can check in online. gentlemen remain available for assistance, and Jain emphasized that travelers will continue to have this option.