ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- When the Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport was planning a new concourse, prime tenant Alaska Airlines insisted on a counterintuitive design: "The one thing we don't want is a ticket counter," said Ed White, the airline's vice president of corporate real estate.

So the 447,000-square-foot Concourse C, which opened in 2004, has only one small, traditional ticket counter, even though the carrier's 1.2 million Anchorage passengers checked in through that area last year. This unconventional approach -- which uses self-service check-in machines and manned "bag drop" stations in a spacious hall that looks nothing like a typical airport -- has doubled Alaska's capacity here, halved its staffing needs and cut costs, while speeding travelers through the building in far less time.

Most U.S. airports have shallow, rectangular check-in halls with endless ticket counters against the back wall. In between the counters and terminal doors typically are lines of passengers snaking back and forth, waiting to check bags or speak to agents for assistance. Even with most airlines' introduction of self-service check-in kiosks, fliers needing to check luggage or pets, buy tickets or ask for other assistance still need to stand in line.

In Anchorage, the lobby is deep instead of shallow. But thanks to multiple windows, it is light and airy and provides a sweeping view of the Chugach Mountains to the east. The spacious hall is dotted with kiosks and roving customer-service agents to help passengers who aren't familiar with the machines. Those without bags can go immediately to the security-screening lines around the corner. Those with luggage proceed to bag-drop stations where the passengers, not the agents, place the bags on conveyor belts while the clerk checks boarding passes and identification, tag the bags and give the fliers the baggage stubs.

Because the transactions are so swift at these stations -- and because the passengers (or, in some cases, porters) do the heavy lifting -- one agent can handle two lines of passengers, and the lines are rarely very long. Elite frequent fliers have dedicated bag-drop stations.