Continental installs automated check-in kiosk at P.G.I.A.

Automated airport check in … it’s pretty standard in most major airports in the U.S.A. and Europe, but for Belize and most of the Caribbean and Central America slow lines and old fashioned ticketing procedures have long been a way of life. Until now, that is. News Five’s Kendra Griffith has the latest lesson in airport etiquette.

Kendra Griffith, Reporting
Meet the airport kiosk; the newest and fastest way to check-in at the P.G.I.A. … that is if you fly Continental Airlines.

Kim Aikman, Country Manager, Continental Airlines
“We are the first airline in Belize to bring in the electronic kiosks. We have these in most international destinations throughout the world. Belize is one of the firsts in Central America and I think it shows—it’s a testament of the commitment that Continental Airlines has to this destination.”

Kendra Griffith
“Why did you all decide to install them?”

Kim Aikman
“We are doing it throughout the system to make the checkout system more efficient. We’re trying to go paperless by the end of 2008 to make things easier for people. You know when you lose a ticket it’s a big hassle. Now with electronic ticket and electronic check-in it’s easy, if you lose your boarding pass you can come back and print another boarding pass.”

Travellers can access the kiosk by inserting a credit card or Continental OnePass card, sliding through their machine readable passport, or inputting their ticket or confirmation number.

Kim Aikman
“Your reservation pops up and it walks you through the steps. It asks you if you are travelling with an infant, how many people are travelling, it brings up your name, and then you have to input if you have a manual passport, one of the old passports, you have to manually input your information off the passport, if not you scan the machine readable passport and it just takes all the information in.”

When using non-machine readable passports, travellers will get a screen asking for a rep from the airline to help complete the process. According to Continental, this is to verify that the person has the proper documentation for their destination.

Kim Aikman
“It prints out your boarding pass at the end; it asks you if you have any bags, how many bags, are they overweight, yes or no? We have customer service agents behind each kiosk to verify the weight of the bags.”

Kendra Griffith
“How much time would people spend at a kiosk?”

Kim Aikman
“Average it’s about fifteen minutes, average. And that’s just until they get used to it, because it’s fairly simple once you know.”

Robert Griffiths, Flyer
“I find it very easy to use and very quick, very, very efficient too.”

Kendra Griffith
“You’ll be using it in the future?”

Robert Griffiths
“Yes gladly, because it gets me through much quicker.”

Kendra Griffith
“How much time you think you shaved off?”

Robert Griffiths
“Oh, probably about ten or fifteen minutes.”

To make the process even quicker, flyers can also check-in online a day in advance.

Kim Aikman
“What we also have in place, a customer can go to continental.com twenty-four hours before the flight and check in online and then they come to one of these kiosks and just press the continental.com bag drop icon and it will print their baggage tag, so all there are doing is just checking the bag instead of going through the entire process.”

And with the travel season in full gear, Continental couldn’t have chosen a better time to bring in the kiosks.

Kim Aikman
“Right now it’s our high season. We have spring break, so all of our flights are operating at about a ninety-seven, ninety-eight percent load factor, which is approximately a hundred and fifty-five people per flight and like on Saturdays we have four flights.”

For travellers who are skittish about new technology, two stations are available for regular check-ins, and there is a representative behind every kiosk. Kendra Griffith reporting for News Five.

Of course in addition to making check-in more convenient for travellers, the automated process also allows the airlines to cut back on their number of employees.