Quote:
Originally Posted by JHikka
Went through the automated baggage at Stanfield on Sunday. It's perfectly fine for someone my age (early 20s), but there were certainly older people that looked lost. I went in with my check in barcode on my phone and got my baggage tags and boarding pass, which can be done at any airport anywhere, which was followed by a ~20 person line for a single man who looked at your boarding pass and told you which automated baggage machine to go to. I had the option of using one of four for my flight (Air Canada, Halifax -> Ottawa). The line for this one guy got up to as high as ~40 people.
After passing him I went to the machine where I had to position my baggage perfectly in the centre of the belt. It scanned and measured the baggage before accepting. There were plenty of people who were having difficulty positioning their baggage on the belt (too large) or had to remove things (too heavy). They had scales at the automated check-in machines.
Overall it was really quick, but I really do enjoy having a counter for baggage. It makes me feel better knowing that if my baggage ends up on the wrong flight it isn't necessarily my fault. 
Nothing particular to Halifax but I love being able to check-in on my phone before reaching the airport, followed by printing my baggage and boarding passes at the automated machines which almost never have lines. It's much easier than having to wait in the check-in lines. |
Actually, from your description, it sounds far worse.
Part of the issue is that the airlines and airport authorities generally have done a very poor job of explaining to the non-frequent flyer how this all works. When physical tickets went away years ago I would always go online to my reservation and print out my itinerary, which usually meant several sheets of paper that I had to bring with me, so that alone was a step backwards. Now you are saying that if you have a smart phone you can have it display a bar code that can be scanned to check yourself in instead of inserting an identification of some sort and entering whatever info they required. I never knew that but would be very dubious about depending on it.
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