lincolnjkc

Third airport check-in this week and third time I've seen it -- fairly decent crowd at check in, one or more kiosks being ignored because they're displaying the "touch free" instructions (which, aside from having far too much text to expect anyone to read, looks close enough to the "kiosk out of service hours" message on a "look at the general composition of the screen but don't read it" level)

There is a relatively nondescript text link (not an obvious button) in the middle of the screen that you can tap to flip it into "normal" mode...but I only noticed it after having 10+ minutes to wait at premier check-in the first time (and for the first time in a long time, even pre-COVID) and reading the screen over and over until it finally clicked.

By that point I mentioned it to the now only 2 people in front of me in the queue but none was willing to try it...

PTahCha

There is a bottleneck of 3 second delay when it switches from the touch-free scanning mode to the normal mode. But I had worse issue at LAX when they did not staff anyone at the self-service kiosks to take your luggage, which forced everyone to stand in line for 2 agents. It took 10 minutes before another agent arrives to manage the kiosks.

lincolnjkc

Noticed similar staffing bottleneck at IAD this morning (both agents dealing with a single passenger and the ABM dude apparently isn't allowed to tag bags -- just move them from the counter to the belt after an agent tags them, which seems to be a useless position but I digress) -- but I was referring more to people avoiding kiosks that are actually available because the mode change isn't an obvious feature.creating a false scarcity

goodeats21

I thought the same thing on the interface. Was not obvious on being able to switch to normal mode, and didn't appear to be an easy way to just print a boarding pass in the touchless mode.

Glad I am not alone. LOL

fumje

Has anyone actually successfully used the touchless mode?

Out of curiosity I tried once but was completely confounded about what to do. I did, fortunately, notice the 'normal mode' escape button relatively quickly.

eng3

So isn't this faster? There is always a free kiosk for you to use.

lincolnjkc

Now that I know .. although just barging in front of people in the queue is not my preferred modus operandi...the more I encounter the situation the less inclined I am to be nice about it

eng3

The airports I usually goto, I see a line in front of each kiosk. If there is an open kiosk with no line, I see no issue with using it if no one else wants to use it. In fact, people seeing me use it may speed up the other lines as they discover it is available. I suppose if I were really nice, I could ask everyone in each line if they want to use the open kiosk before I go over there, but that's beyond the level of niceness I typically have available when I'm at the airport.

If there were one only one line (like at customs) maybe that would be another story.

lincolnjkc

CLE it was a generally socially distanced blob with people at the front of the blob going to the kiosk in relative order (it seemed) of who had been waiting at the blob longest with the Premier Access/1K group being one blob and regular economy being a distinctly different blob (or perhaps a couple blobs) -- without formal queue markers, and allowing extra space it's kind of hard to tell.

Another airport (why can't I remember where I've been this week? LOL) had a single bank-teller type queue with ropes feeding kiosks

IAD premier access this morning no sense of a formal queue within the pen but every "normal" kiosk had a person using it (or waiting for one of the two agents to affix a bag tag so ABM dude could then move it) and there were a handful of people randomly spread out waiting to us a kiosk. I mentioned the "touchless" kiosk I saw to the young lady closest to me (since there was no queue to be identified but she was definitely there before me) and when she declined I went for the kill.