> According to the International Air Transport Association, moving to a fully automated check-in process could save the airline industry $1.6 billion a year. Wh

> According to the International Air Transport Association, moving to a fully automated check-in process could save the airline industry $1.6 billion a year. Which raises the question: Why haven’t we? Because you need the people with the domain knowledge to handle the exceptional cases anyway. Many years ago I was flying Continental from MSP to CLE. Cleveland proceeded to get 2 feet of snow over about 5 hours. The humans at Continental rebooked me onto the next 3 Continental flights, and then the following 2 Northwest flights before CLE threw in the towel for the day[0]. You don't want to expose that level of functionality to the lay person, and if you automate it, you run the risk of creating a system so hide-bound by its rules, it can't respond appropriately either. Just like the one that wouldn't let the author check in 57 minutes before his flight[1]. At this point in time, humans still have the edge on having local knowledge and the good judgment to apply it to the exceptional situations. The real purpose of the flight attendants is to get your ass of the plane in an emergency; serving drinks and snacks just justifies their presence the rest of the time. Similarly check-in and gate agents are there to fix problems when they arise, in the last 10 years or so, the ability to check you in is pretty much secondary (modulo oversize bags, etc, which are just another example of exceptions). [0] We got home the next day on the first flight. I'm sure the folks in Cleveland had a much rougher time getting to their destinations. [1] Been there done that on an LGW to CLE flight back in the day. Also watched my original flight board from across the concourse where I was booked on a flight through EWR that departed a mere 10 minutes after the CLE flight.