American Airlines testing Tag your own Bag in Boston
Luggage tag from OKC to AKL by Wesley Fryer on Flickr
According to a news item published in the Boston Herald, American Airlines and Air Canada are testing self bag tagging a self-tagging option and their self-service check-in kiosks at Boston’s Logan airport. According to the article by Donna Goodison:
“Passengers will be able to use a kiosk to print their own baggage routing tags along with their boarding passes. But, unlike in other countries, passengers still will be required to check in with a ticket-counter agent instead of simply dropping off their bags at a designated location, according to a source familiar with the plans.”
In Canada and Europe you can go directly to the baggage drop off area after you print your boarding pass and tag your luggage. In order to satisfy U.S. security concerns, passengers will still have to go to the check-in counter before they drop off their luggage. In explaining the reason for this extra step, IATA spokesman Steve Lot said “The TSA wanted to make sure that there were no security risks about somebody dropping something bad on a security belt and walking away,”. Thus saving passengers zero time while marginally (and debatably) decreasing the costs to the airlines. Nice.
Read all about it here.