On Oct 24, 2:13 pm, Ad absurdum per aspera
wrote:
And don't forget telephone check-in.

I wonder just what "check-in" means. Southwest, which I fly a lot,
allows you to "check in" and print your boarding pass as much as 24
hours in advance, over the Internet.

Which, obviously, is completely divorced from any implication that
you are not stuck in traffic or checking one last e-mail at the hotel
or lingering over coffee with your hosts; you have made it to the
airport and they can take a good guess whether you can get to your
plane on time. That's what I always assumed check-in meant: here I
am.

I've wondered much the same thing. Although if one wants to go
back a bajillion years, international flights often requested/required
one to call about 48 hours prior, one still "checked in" upon arrival,
giving them some idea of how many passengers were going to be
flying that day. With the new system, although they get some
early idea of how many folks are actually intending upon
showing up, there still must be a fairly good "no show" rate
for last minute problems.

[snip]
I wonder if that was a factor in the original poster's situation --
perhaps it speeds things up for some airlines (at least if the
traveler isn't ill at ease with computers and/or vision disabled) to
do it that way. That's just a guess. Pulling you out of the line and
making you poke at a computer is not something for which I have a
definite explanation.

There is no doubt that the number of people capable of
using the kiosk rises to a level where they can process significantly
more people in the same amount of time with fewer actual gate
agents. When you realize that in some "groups" at least one of
the people traveling can do the process for everyone, I'd guess that
the number of folks who flat out can't use a kiosk is lower than
10% and it is to the advantage of an airline to identify them and
apply resources to them exclusively. Any process of coercing/
cajoling/
redirecting customers at this stage is almost assuredly an attempt
to get folks who can, but choose not to, to at least "give it a go".