Alaska Airlines recently started a 3-year, $2.5 billion project to improve the airport experience at its hubs and focus cities like Seattle, Portland, San Francisco and Los Angeles. As a part of this project, the airline is looking to modernize the lobby experience and as the company announced today, the most visible change here will be the removal of the good old check-in kiosk.
Alaska will encourage fliers to check in at home or on their smartphones and instead of the kiosks, the airline will introduce single-function, iPad-based bag tag stations, where fliers can scan their boarding passes to get a bag tag, and automatic bag drops. These bag drops will also mark the first time Alaska will use biometric data to authenticate travelers.
The airline started testing this system at a number of airports, including Palm Springs, in recent months, but it’s now announcing this wider rollout.
