Hartsfield-Jackson at top for self check-in

By Kelly Yamanouchi

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

As airlines gear up for holiday travelers, a survey shows Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport is ahead of some airports in other countries in online and mobile check-in usage.

Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines and other carriers still want to further increase travelers’ use of self-service options like online, kiosks and mobile devices, which help them to process more travelers with fewer employees and reduce lines.

Nearly 84 percent of travelers surveyed at Hartsfield-Jackson use self-service check-in options. That’s higher than at the other airports in the survey -- Mumbai, India; Paris; Moscow; Sao Paulo, Brazil; and Johannesburg, South Africa. Hartsfield-Jackson, the world’s busiest airport, was the only U.S. airport included.

The chief barrier for travelers is checked bags, according to SITA, a travel technology firm that did the survey. Though passengers generally can check in online and then drop checked bags at the airport, some don’t know that. Others say it is complicated or don’t see a time savings.

“The baggage dilemma is fundamental and needs to be addressed to increase usage of self-service options,” said Dominique El Bez, SITA’s director of portfolio marketing.

Delta and some other carriers offer a monetary incentive for online check-in when traveling with checked bags. It charges an extra $5 on top of checked bag fees for checking bags at the airport rather than online.

An emerging technology in flight check-ins is the electronic boarding pass. Delta is among carriers that offer electronic boarding passes in some locations through a Transportation Security Administration project.

Mobile check-in, which made up only 4.2 percent of check-ins at Hartsfield-Jackson in the survey, is “still in its infancy and is mainly emerging in some specific locations like in Atlanta,” El Bez said. Delta allows mobile check-in in Atlanta, Cincinnati, Houston-Bush Intercontinental, Las Vegas, Minneapolis, New York LaGuardia, Orlando and Salt Lake City.

Some airlines are considering kiosks for future uses such as reporting lost baggage.