American And Delta Too Busy To Tag Your Bags, Want You To Do It Yourself

Thought there wasn’t much more the airlines could fob off on the customer? You were wrong. Apparently, the employees at American and Delta are so slow at tagging your checked bags that the airlines think you’d do it better yourself.

The two carriers, as well as Air Canada, are trying to launch test programs that would have passengers tagging their own luggage with stickers printed out at self-service kiosks.

American and Air Canada are both hoping to start their trials out at Boston’s Logan International Airport between now and the crush of the holiday travel season; Delta’s test target has not yet been named.

From USA Today:

The trial will let the airlines’ customers at Boston Logan print tags from several customized self-service kiosks and place them directly on their luggage without agent supervision. Passengers will still have to see an agent in a dedicated line who will check the ID, scan the tag to validate it and place bags on the conveyor belt.

The bags will still be screened by TSA after they’ve been tagged, so there is no change in security nor any added risk, say the airlines.

There are currently 32 airports in the world that already have self-tagging kiosks of some sort. At some of these, it’s not even required to see an airline agent after you’ve tagged your bags.

This is just the latest move to automate the checking-in and boarding process. As reported this summer, Continental has begun testing self check-in at some of their gates in Houston.

Airlines may test do-it-yourself traveler bag tagging [USA Today]

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