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| · December 10, 2003 · |
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· Alaska Airlines Unveils Airport Of The Future At Los Angeles International Airport SEATTLE, Wash. (December 10, 2003) -- Alaska Airlines today unveiled a new high-tech check-in counter at Los Angeles International Airport, giving customers a glimpse of the future of air travel. The new system does away with the old bottleneck at the ticket counter and allows passengers to flow through check-in in two simple steps.
"By splitting the check-in process into two steps and using smart kiosks, we are able to process more customers at a time, consequently eliminating lines and wait times," said Ed White, Alaska's vice president of ground operations. Alaska tested the system over the busy Thanksgiving holiday travel period. "We handled more than 5,500 passengers at LAX on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving with little or no lines and minimal wait times," White said. The system is a two-step process, versus the customary one-line-serves-all. At step one, customers approach a bank of automated and customer-friendly check-in kiosks where they check-in, obtain a boarding pass and indicate if they have checked luggage. Passengers traveling on international flights can also have their passports scanned at this step with new automated passport readers. At step two, customers approach a baggage podium, where an Alaska Airlines employee will scan their boarding pass and attach automatically generated bag tags. Customers traveling without luggage can skip this step. After that, customers can proceed directly on their way to the security checkpoint. A traditional ticket counter, staffed with Alaska Airlines employees, also is available for customers needing additional assistance. The project, part of Alaska's Airport of the FutureSM initiative, took eight months and involved a major reconstruction of the airline's facility located at Terminal 3 at LAX. Alaska unveiled a similar two-step check-in process at Anchorage International Airport in June 2002. The airline plans to implement similar programs at airports where facilities permit. Kinetics, Inc. of Lake Mary, Florida, the leading provider of self-service technology to the airline industry, designed the self-service kiosks for Alaska. A technology leader itself, Alaska Airlines became the first North American carrier to sell tickets online in 1995, and in 1999 was the first airline in the world to allow customers to check-in for flights via the Internet. Nearly 50 percent of Alaska's customers check-in electronically via the web or more than 400 Instant Travel Machines located at 80 airports. Alaska Airlines began serving LAX in 1985 with four daily departures to Seattle. The airline has grown to become the fifth largest carrier in passenger enplanements today at LAX with 41 daily nonstop departures to 15 destinations in the western U.S., Alaska, Canada and Mexico. Alaska and its sister carrier, Horizon Air, together serve 80 cities in Alaska, the Lower 48, Canada and Mexico. For more news and information, visit the Alaska Airlines Newsroom on the Internet at http://newsroom.alaskaair.com. Media Contact: Jack Evans 206-392-5134 |
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