New fangled airline check in

The entire business of using an airport is stressful and humiliating. The crowds and the queues are too much. I have decided I dont ever want to fly again.

It’s ‘orrible isn’t it ? Melbourne airport is fully automated, I hate it. You even have to load and weigh your baggage after you have braved the vending machines and computers. At first they had people around to help but they seem to be rapidly disappearing so that the odd one there has long,long queues .

I'm just back from a wonderful week in NYC. We printed out anything flight and hotel related (It was a "Virgin Break") and couldn't get the automatic check in to work at home. So we just turned up at the check in desk at Heathrow, with our luggage and said to the chap we couldn't get the automatic check in to work at home. He said it's always failing! So coming back from JFK we did the same thing despite the e-mails telling us to do it before we got to the airport. No issue, no queues no hassle.

I guess with the increased volume of passengers travelling in and out, automated check ins are only going to increase.
I walk past a French ferry Port up close twice a week, and new check in booths have sprung up, and cable laying is being frantically installed for the new system. We all have to oearn and adept, but I don't like the automated experience much either. DH is perfectly comfortable with it.

*learn and adapt
I can't even type in the correct letters on GN my phone! 🤣

Yes, it's all DIY now at airports. I can cope, but I wonder what would happen if I needed help?
There were no staff at the airport check in / baggage area yesterday.
The first place staffed was security, which you could access only after you'd checked in and loaded your hold bag.

DH helped a lady who was clearly struggling to cope with the automated luggage check in at Gatwick, and checked her case through for her. Unfortunately he did so just after we’d put my bag through, and before he did his own. The system obviously picked up that there were two of us on our online booking, and even though he used her boarding card, her case went through with all his details attached. We realised this only when his boarding card then wouldn’t work and we’d to check his case in under her details, using her boarding card again. I’m sure this could have caused problems - if one of the cases had gone astray, say (or if she’d had something dubious in her case that was picked up in the scan!). Not an employee in sight to help, and we weren’t the only ones having difficulties.

On my travels recently there were more assistants helping people with the machines than there were behind the check-in desk.

Also at railways stations there were more assistants helping people use the machines!!

When I go shopping and there are no tills open I always ask for help in using the machine.

Technology is crazy!

The irony of needing more people to help with the failures of automated check in , than they’d need if they manned the desks does not escape me🙄🤔😬

To add insult to injury Gatwick is a no announcement airport.
Clever that!
To keep track of your flight you have to have the app or look at the boards.
Trouble is that there are quite a few places where it is difficult to see the pesky things.
Last year we were going to France and the flight was delayed by a few hours. We recalculated our itinerary and decided to have some lunch. No boards in that area.
From somewhere they must have found another plane or extra crew and they brought the flight forward again! Ever heard of that before? Neither had we but luckily I needed to go to the loo and could see a board. We had 5 mins to get to the gate!
With one autistic young man who can get a bit agitated if we go into full blown panic mode and mum in a wheelchair we must have made a comical sight. We did get on the plane and then sat for about an hour whilst the fabulous captain insisted that an attempt to find about 20 passengers that were still missing
in the airport. They were all having lunch.
Thank goodness for her and what a stupid system.

I know it wasn’t funny * Pamela* but the picture you just painted did make me laugh😁😳

What a waste of resources it is to have a couple of staff hovering around waiting to dart forward and help passengers struggling with the self-check in! Even seasoned travellers, like my DD, found checking in at Heathrow annoying and frustrating.

It would be far better if those staff were on the check in desks again and I'm sure they'd prefer that too.

And don't get me started on the £7 for a drop off at Bristol Airport! It's chaos.

Then the flight that it listed as delayed when you've arrived at the airport but the staff aren't sure if it's cancelled or just delayed Then decide that it's just delayed but it says cancelled online! It was cancelled.

Because DH can't walk far we always ask for assistance , works really well!

Agreed, OP, airports are just a source of faff and hassle to me now. Odd to think how I once found even the fact of being in an airport exciting!

Still going away soon (first flight this year - dh has gone at least once on his own) but at least he has managed to wangle business class on the air miles….

Lathyrus3

I know it wasn’t funny * Pamela* but the picture you just painted did make me laugh😁😳

Well it was made worse because we didn’t have time to so Autistic young man was very hungry. We were in the middle of the plane so we’re served last. Just about the time we were landing!
So another top tip, if travelling on a cheap airline when hungry then sit at the front or back!
grannysyb I suppose there has to be a silver lining, with hindsight I wonder why we didn’t have help. We did on the way back.

"Odd to think how I once found even the fact of being in an airport exciting!"
You said it, Witzend.
We used Stansted in July and horrified we had to do , effectively, Ryanair's staff's jobs for them. So we have to weigh and label our own luggage and load it by placing it on the conveyor belt next to the check-in desk, where , unbothered by any contact with Ryanair or any other aerport staff , it is taken automatically behind the little rubber(curtain) to be loaded.
We had never done any of this before so struggled a bit with the process. I asked the three Ryanair staff standing in the weighing area( having finished being briefed about something) for help. Nada . Nix. Nothing. The one who did speak to me was quite dismissive and rude.
We got it done but it was very stressful.

It’s great when it works, but frankly an absolute nightmare when it doesn’t!

I've decided I don't want or need to go anywhere badly enough to fly there ever again.
Last time was pre-pandemic and the whole experience of overpriced parking; automated check-ins that didn't work; surly security staff hassling disabled spouse to get his shoes off quicker; long waits in airless spaces at the departure gates; lack of knee room in the aircraft; the people marshalling the passport queues in Berlin who would have been happier at a muster with cattle prod in hand all combined to persuade me that life is too short to put up with this if you don't have to. The romance of travel? Long gone, alas.

Last time I flew I had assistance and had to change planes at Frankfurt. Its a huge airport and I dont know how I would have managed without the lovely young man who met me with a motorised buggy. He picked up another couple as well, just took our passports and boarding cards and did all the check in/out for us. I booked this in advance by contacting the airline. It was a German owned airline and worled like a military operation.

I recently did a long haul flight with BA. Booked online with details on my phone. I only took one carry on bag. 24 hours prior flight I downloaded the boarding pass to my phone avoiding the need to check-in at a desk. Like it or not it's the digital age, straightforward and without human interaction!

We recently flew LHR to MUC, Luftansa. Printed passes at home. Seamless.

Oh, it was working then, Norah

Miracle!

Cossy

It’s great when it works, but frankly an absolute nightmare when it doesn’t!

This!

It wasn't when DD tried to go through, lots of frustrated passengers who had checked in beforehand; then they all had to join a long queue with not enough staff to deal with check-ins, a young family with two small children made to unpack and repack their cases - all in all a very poor customer experience.

Meantime, the queue for those on the same flight who had not checked in previously was moving seamlessly!

Progress? 🤔