spongenotbob

I stopped flying UA many moons ago, but still had one booking left this morning, departing SFO at 9.45 am. Arrived SFO kettle class baggage check / kiosk drop-off area at 8 am this morning. I have little, if any, status left with UA.

20+ kiosks, 15+ people in line for each kiosk (so, 300+ passengers waiting). Two contractors running around taking bags (official cry when someone needed help: "We're not United! We're not United! There's the employee over there". ONE actual United employee to service all 20+ kiosks. At 8 am on a very busy pre-holiday travel day. At one point probably 1/3 of all the kiosks were stuck at the giant exclamation point (please wait for a United employee).

It took 50 minutes to drop bags. FIFTY minutes.

Nice job United. Way to save those bucks.

tom911

This would have been a great opportunity for a Twitter post with a photo just to see what UA had to say about their excellent customer service.

endrond

Smisek would say "It's a ballet. It takes so many people coming together...."

mahasamatman

But they're not all supposed to be customers...

Kacee

The self check-in kiosks are a disaster. Same situation in the Premier area, with perhaps slightly better ratio of UA contractors. Does UA have a special department devoted to researching how to make the flying experience ever more unpleasant?

RockinPete

Yep.

For the past 4 years, 90%+ of my travel has been international... so even when traveling domestically I go to the international terminal. I know where my car/motorcycle is and check-in is still excellent over there.

I have used the domestic check-in twice and I will never use it again if I can avoid it.

docbert

Unless things have changed (and it could well have as it's been a few years since I've confirmed it), you can't check luggage for domestic flights at the international terminal. So it works fine if you don't have luggage, but not if you do.

Of course, if you don't have luggage, you could just have used mobile check-in in most cases...

dordal

If anybody knows this definitely, I'd love to hear. I'm usually coming off BART, so intl would be WAY more convenient, esp given the location of the new premier desk in T3.

DBCme

My favorite part of the self-check in kiosks is the luggage tags which passengers are supposed to do themselves. Surprising how many people mess that up; something about an airport environment makes people rather goofy

Often1

Same thing with AA at MCO. The carriers all do competitive research and when they see one carrier trying something, they watch it and then try it themselves.

I am pretty certain that this is the direction which check-in is moving. For those without bags, it's just a backup for OLCI (or to scan a passport). For those with bags, there is no reason why the whole process can't be automated and then the bag simply dropped with its tag, an ID displayed to a low-level "monitor" and that's the end of it.

PsiFighter37

I always do mobile check-in and get the BP on my phone. The only reason I will ever stop at a kiosk nowadays is if I have to check a bag.

UA-NYC

And it's pointless in the Premier area at SFO...since the contractors have all the orange *G priority tags anyways

Kacee

The two things that gall me most are (i) you can't really "self check-in" you still have to hand your bag to an agent for scanning, and (ii) when it's crowded, the area around the kiosks becomes an uncontrolled free-for-all. The prior system at least had an organized line.

The new Pre security check is also prone to severe overcrowding, fortunately they've left open the old one at the west end of F concourse . . . that's where I usually go.

DWFI

I think that at some point they will get rid of the agents checking IDs and bag tags as well. It will take yet another redesign of the checkin areas but if Hertz gives you a car through a kiosk when I'm sure UA can do the same (unless there's some kind of federal regulation preventing this).

Kacee

I doubt that.

1. They need to weigh the bags so they can collect overweight fees if necessary. That seems to be the primary function of the agents. No way UA is dodging that ancillary revenue opportunity.

2. I believe they need to check ID to take a checked bag.