OddThinking

Note: Pingbacks turned off on this post; a particularly aggressive batch of spambots have chosen this post as a practice-ground.

I am less incredulous at early check-in than I am at overbooking. If reservation and payment have already been completed, and a passenger fails to board the plane, then I see one source of “waste” from the airline’s point of view: a wasted opportunity to charge more fares than a plane has the capacity for. This can be fairly (that is, equitably) mitigated to some extent from stand-by passengers.

As I see it, the practice of overbooking is one of near-pure greed, and one which can unfairly inconvenience passengers. (When passengers must be turned away or transferred, it typically costs the airline in terms of rebates, goodwill, and perhaps some vague amount of additional training or wages for staff skilled enough to handle the complex flurry of transactions that must occur to recover from overbooking. Certainly this cost would be less than the original fare, or the airlines would be doing something horribly wrong; but it’s not like they are getting the whole value of the original fare “for free” in the deal.)

There are other sources of waste from points of view other than the airline’s. To me, by far the most egregious (which is not to say it’s necessarily particularly egregious) is environmental: More fuel will be spent per person-kilometer than strictly necessary for a given plane, route, travel speed, etc. There would also be commensurately more emissions, wear-and-tear, etc. But from an airline accountant’s standpoint, once step 2 is accomplished, I would not characterize any conversion failures as even remotely expensive.

The purpose of early check-in is greater time efficiency. It aids throughput at the airport. If enough people do it, it can even allow reductions in staff. I do agree that 24 hours is pretty arbitrary. If it were up to me, I would allow check-in as soon as the fare has become nonrefundable, which as you point out, could be as soon as the payment has been made.

Why can’t you choose your seat when you buy your ticket? I’ve done that plenty of time; whenever I book through my travel agent I tell him which seat I want and I get it. When I check-in, I don’t even get a seat choice – just a choice of special meals, etc. When I don’t use my travel agent, however, I don’t get that option for some reason.

I meant plenty of timeS, of course.

The only failure case that freaks airlines out and costs a lot of time and money is the failure to go from step 5 to step 6. Any baggage that’s loaded on a plane that doesn’t have an accompanying passenger is cause for alarm, and will cause the plane to be delayed while bags are unloaded and the bomb squad goes over the abandoned bags (using the locally preferred method, be it sniffers, x-rays, or simply blowing it up to be safe).

Overbooking, on the other hand, is a fact of life when using the non-transactional reservation systems that airlines have (e.g. SABRE). For some reason*, airline reservations just don’t lock the seat(s) you’re buying on a plane from when your ticket vendor registers your interest (and window/aisle preference!) to when you purchase the ticket(s). Someone else can swoop in and nab the seat(s) you’ve earmarked at the start, meaning that it’s very likely that a reservation conflict is detected after both parties have paid for their seats. To me, the amazing thing is that this doesn’t cause the problems John Y describes *every* time it happens.

* This reason will be the same reason nobody likes distributed locking and key-value data stores are all the rage: recovery from partial failure is hard, and (as long as you’ve lowered everyone’s expectations enough) global consistency isn’t necessary. Better to let some reservations go ahead while partial network failure is going on, and resolve any conflicts at check-in**.

** Self check-in a day in advance had better be transactional, or you’re going to have more than a few angry people who’ve been bumped from their plane wandering around the gates in the passenger-only parts of the airport. Apparently this too is standard practice for some countries (thankfully not ours!).

Wow! Finally someone with the same opinion as me. My wife used to work for Singapore Airlines and she would get furious with me when I wasn’t that bothered about checking-in online instead of just turning up at the airport. She would then get even more irate when I tried to suggest that to me the whole point of checking-in is made void by the possibility of doing it outside the airport. Why have this waste of everybody’s time if it’s not even necessary any more? Why not just have a single document act as ticket and boarding pass and save everyone the hassle of trying to find WiFi and a printer when you’re in the middle of nowhere in some foreign land (as well as cutting down a heck of a lot of the airline’s own administration).

Like you, I understand the issues of fleet utilisation, load-balancing, seat allocation, overbooking, etc. but if you’ve already paid for the ticket at stage 1 and don’t need to be physically present to check in then all those arguments go out of the window, as far as I can see. In fact, a recent EasyJet flight I took actually was already pre-checked-in (both ways) immediately following ticket purchase (something not very clearly explained and therefore quite confusing at the time!) – so they seem to agree. I didn’t bring this point up with my wife… 😉

But during a flight across the globe recently, I thought of another major time and effort saving exercise: can we please do something to dispense with the repeated need to check tickets/boarding-passes/passports multiple times and usually right before/after a security check. During one journey it happened several times, often within the same transit airport, that I was left fumbling for my passport on one side of the scanner only to be fumbling for the boarding pass immediately on the other side… while simultaneously trying to retrieve my personal belongings and holding up my beltless trousers at the same time! And then the staff tell me to hurry up!!!

In my perfect system, you purchase a ticket online / by phone / at an agent. Travel document details are taken at the same time (but can be changed later, maybe with a small fee). If the aircraft is already selected then you can choose your seat. If the aircraft is not yet selected then you will be able to do so online / by phone / at an agent after a pre-determined date (which will vary depending on your place in the queue: first 50 passengers from day X, second 50 passengers from day X+7 etc. – you will also be sent a reminder by e-mail if you give your address). Baggage requirements are also taken at this point (but can be changed later, maybe with a small fee).

No further need to do anything before the flight (except check its status – which of course should also be sent by e-mail 1 week before and 1 day before the flight).

Upon arrival all that’s needed is to deposit your baggage and present your travel document (the ticket’s been paid for, why do I need to have the credit card with me?) or log in at a kiosk with your reservation code. You will be issued with a smart-card boarding-pass to be worn around your neck. This card is linked to details of your ticket, flight, baggage and travel document. The card will be validated by passport control, effectively replacing the travel document. From then on, this same card can be swiped or even tracked with RFID. There will be no need to produce any other documents except for spot-checks. The number of checks can be reduced. The passengers don’t have to fiddle with different bits of card and paper and will inform the system upon arrival at their gate. The airline will know where the strays are before having to make last calls and unload baggage! Even on-board checks can be quickly conducted using hand-held scanners.

After completing the journey (i.e. including all legs of transit), the card will be handed in to passport control – allowing a final check that the passenger who passed through the system was who he said he was. Baggage retrieval could be moved inside the passport-controlled zone or a paper receipt for baggage could be issued to assist in case of lost luggage (but this may not be necessary since the airline has your travel document details).

Doesn’t that sound easier?