[HN Gopher] What is the purpose of check-in before flying? (2014)
___________________________________________________________________
What is the purpose of check-in before flying? (2014)
Author : samuelstros
Score : 113 points
Date : 2022-02-28 18:10 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (travel.stackexchange.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (travel.stackexchange.com)
| techsupporter wrote:
| > When you buy a flight or a journey, you are actually buying a
| ticket. This used to be a paper ticket, but now it's electronic.
| But the actual process is the same as before, it's just an
| electronic implementation of the paper. The ticket is your proof
| to the airline that you paid an organisation it trusts for the
| flight. The airline will only distribute its unique ticket paper
| to travel agents it trusts.
|
| Back a very long time ago, I worked for a company that had a lot
| of traveling employees. We were our own travel agent and had on-
| site all of the things a retail travel agent (at the time) had.
| As a junior sysadmin, I was responsible for the computer parts,
| specifically getting the ticket printing machine placed in a
| secure room--TWO keys and a reinforced door and door frame--and
| working with our telco vendor to get the dedicated circuit
| connected to the nearest Sabre Global Distribution System hub.
|
| One day, the ticket printing machine experienced a fault and ran
| a whole stack of ticket paper through at high speed, shredding
| all of the blank ticket stock we had. Though it didn't look like
| it at the time, this wound up being an absolute nightmare. We
| could only get a certain amount of ticket stock at a time (since
| there were few digital controls, if I took a blank ticket and
| typed my own details onto it, free flight!...until someone
| matched up the audit number). We couldn't just ring up our
| sponsoring corporate travel agency and ask for more ticket stock
| because they had the same limitations on themselves.
|
| I spent _all weekend_ picking all of the pieces out of the
| machine and taping them back together to get the audit numbers
| off of enough (I think 90%) of the destroyed ticket stock, along
| with pictures of the shredded pile and of the inside of and
| nearby the machine. The pictures were developed at a K-Mart and
| the whole works sent off via FedEx first-AM overnight (the most
| expensive parcel I 'd ever shipped, $135 at the time) to an
| address somewhere in Colorado. Three hours after delivery, I had
| a phone call saying our request for replacement ticket stock was
| granted and they sent a stack of ticket stock via hand-delivered
| courier who I had to meet at the nearby airport.
|
| Fortunately we didn't need to issue any tickets for our employees
| to travel that weekend.
| jiveturkey wrote:
| > hand-delivered courier who I had to meet at the nearby
| airport.
|
| where they presumably were able to fly gratis, since they own
| the ticket stock! lol
| ramses0 wrote:
| Thieves used to break into (relatively unsecured) travel
| agencies, steal the blank paper tickets, and resell them at
| astronomical markup, with the agency "on the hook" for paying
| the maximum value of the tickets stolen.
|
| Basically, "ticket paper" was like a blank check which you
| could fill in with a pencil saying "$10,000: first class ticket
| from NYC to LON", and the airline would accept that ticket, and
| reconcile it _back_ to the original issuing agent (who didn't
| issue the ticket, but instead had it stolen).
|
| Once "the paper" was out there, it was prohibitively expensive
| to maintain and distribute a "rejection database" of serial
| numbers at all points-of-boarding, so tickets were accepted "at
| face value" rather than denying boarding.
|
| As the world has become more connected and digitized, yes,
| airline use cases have always been one of the first to take
| advantage of integrating commerce and technology. SABRE is one
| of the oldest technology companies, and probably one of the
| oldest, most important "continual use" databases around.
| https://www.ibm.com/ibm/history/ibm100/us/en/icons/sabre/
| ...great history in that article!
|
| > The thieves are well organized, stealing thousands of blank
| tickets at a time, forging them and typically reselling them
| for $200 to $10,000 apiece, authorities said.
|
| > "The airlines, in my humble opinion, could stop this," said a
| Westlake Village travel agent who was recently held at gunpoint
| and tied up while thieves ransacked his business. Officials
| with the American Society of Travel Agents, which represents
| more than 11,000 agencies nationally, agree.
|
| ~1978: https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-
| library/abstracts/airline-...
|
| ~1999: https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-
| xpm-1999-aug-22-me-2752-...
| dstick wrote:
| Yeah I can see why this workflow went digital the second it was
| possible :D Thanks for sharing!
| Mikeb85 wrote:
| It's pointless. You need to check your luggage and verify your
| documents anyway, electronic check-in is a waste of time... I
| used to do it, now I don't.
| samuelstros wrote:
| A few days ago I had to take a flight and forget to check-in.
|
| Luckily, I was able to check-in at the airport but I wondered why
| check-ins are required at all in 2022. The answer is unexpected.
|
| TLDR It's how most airlines get paid for the flight.
| [deleted]
| browningstreet wrote:
| Boarded a plane today. Me and my son both have pre check. His
| digital boarding pass didn't have pre check on it. They sent him
| to regular security. I walked through with his paper boarding
| pass (we got when checking luggage), so he had to go get another
| one. His second boarding pass had pre check on it. Whatever this
| system is, this is ridiculous. These tickets were bought
| together, and our numbers were entered correctly.
|
| I half wondered if there was a technical glitch when generating
| his boarding pass. Like, an unavailable API endpoint.
|
| My latest "check in" story. If you don't have pre check on your
| digital or paper boarding pass, request another. And remember to
| check.
| thomasahle wrote:
| > Some airlines (particularly non-U.S. ones) will completely void
| your ticket (meaning that it loses all value) if you miss a
| flight after checking in. (Most U.S. airlines do not do this.)
|
| Does this mean that in the US, if I miss my flight, my ticket is
| still somehow valid? I have never heard of this.
| Naga wrote:
| This is really interesting. As a non-U.S. based and infrequent
| traveller, I had always just assumed that you lost the value of
| the ticket if you missed the trip. I never really understood
| sitcoms where no one seems to care if they missed their flights
| or not, but this would make a lot of sense.
| madcaptenor wrote:
| I've missed maybe five or so domestic flights on "legacy" US
| airlines (American/Delta/United). If I recall correctly, on
| all but one of those I was rebooked. On the remaining one I
| was not rebooked; the airline tried to accommodate me but
| they couldn't get me where I was going in time for the thing
| I was going to.
|
| That being said, I do _care_ if I miss my flight, because it
| 's obviously a pain even if you do get rebooked!
| philjohn wrote:
| This is why, as a UK based traveller, I aim to get to the
| airport for international flights so that I can check in
| when checkin opens 3 hours before the flight.
|
| At least I'm usually sat in a comfortable lounge for the
| extra time, and can get a few things done, or just relax
| and read.
| dboreham wrote:
| Sitcoms aren't set in reality in general though. People who
| are unemployed actors live in $1M apartments in Manhattan,
| for example.
| bombcar wrote:
| A "ticket" may include more than just one leg of the journey -
| you could have a two stage ticket, SAN-JFK-CDG - and missing
| the SAN-JFK flight may or may not void your JFK-CDG ticket (it
| may be that the second flight leaves enough time to scramble
| and get to it another way).
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| Typically they'll rebook you on a later flight. Especially if
| you call them beforehand because then they can resell your
| seat. Depending on the ticket and the airline you may be
| charged a fee. You may end up having to wait standby.
| martinflack wrote:
| I believe it relates to being able to approach a gate agent and
| having them rebook you on a later/tomorrow flight as a
| courtesy, after you checked-in but missed a flight because you
| dozed off, didn't watch the time, had a medical issue, couldn't
| find the gate in a huge airport, missed the connection from an
| inbound flight, etc. Really it's an extension of the US
| customer service ethos.
| jakswa wrote:
| Personal anecdote: I've found the tickets can be
| refunded/transferred. The airline recommended a 45min layover,
| and the airport's immigration machines broke and we were stuck
| in line for hours, missing our domestic flight in a separate
| area of the airport. In this case, I found out that the airline
| would've worked with me to reschedule another flight, if I
| could get ahold of them on the phone. Maybe not all airlines
| are like this, just one case.
| mark-r wrote:
| This is exactly why overbooking exists. Airlines expect that
| a certain percentage of their passengers won't make the
| flight, for whatever reason, so they sell a few extra tickets
| so the seats won't be empty.
| sneak wrote:
| Personal counteranecdote: This depends on how it's booked. A
| so-called "hacker fare" from Kayak or Orbitz or Expedia or
| someone last year that involved two different underlying
| carrier bookings had a 45 minute connection between them. The
| covid paperwork check line took 90 minutes due to long lines
| and low staffing in the transfer airport.
|
| The carrier for the second constituent booking said FOAD when
| asked about a rebooking after the flight had left. The
| reseller (I forget if it was Kayak or Orbitz or Expedia)
| refused a refund. We ended up having to book a replacement
| ticket for over $1000, and an overnight hotel stay.
|
| American Express eventually sided with the merchant when I
| tried to do a chargeback for being sold an impossible
| itinerary. It made the trip substantially more expensive and
| +28 hours.
|
| I'm not sure who should be liable for this, but I'm pretty
| sure it's not me. Every other party in the transaction chain
| passed the buck and I was the one who had to pay.
| jaywalk wrote:
| The ticket _itself_ is not valid, because you obviously can 't
| get on a flight that has already left. But the ticket still has
| _value_ (what you paid for it) because you didn 't use it. I
| have never missed a flight before, but I've also never heard of
| anyone in the US losing the value of their ticket because they
| missed their flight.
|
| I saw a video recently of a person who was denied boarding due
| to being visibly intoxicated. The process started with the gate
| agent offering to book them on another flight, and devolved
| into the person being banned from the airline. But they still
| received a full refund for their unused ticket.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| >I saw a video recently of a person who was denied boarding
| due to being visibly intoxicated. The process started with
| the gate agent offering to book them on another flight, and
| devolved into the person being banned from the airline. But
| they still received a full refund for their unused ticket.
|
| More that a decade ago I was doing standards work in
| Amsterdam, after a long weekend of sitting in a conference
| room with 12+ people going over excel spreadsheets to edit a
| bunch of recurring text all over the place that was then used
| to generate the documentation / schema for the standards
| under discussion we were to catch a flight back to
| Copenhagen.
|
| My coworker and I went to get a late lunch before heading
| back, I don't drink but he did so he took a big Heineken.
| Then we went to the airport. We checked in fine, and then we
| went to wait for the flight in the boarding area.
|
| While waiting my coworker went to the bathroom. I decided
| what I really needed to do was some stretches because of how
| excruciatingly cramped up my muscles were from sitting for a
| whole weekend.
|
| At the time I was in exceptionally good shape as I did
| Capoeira 3-5 times a week 3-4 hours a training, yoga classes,
| and weight training. So of course I was doing all sorts of
| funny stuff like balancing with one leg and the foot of the
| other held in my hand for several minutes, and going in a
| bridge pose, doing pushups, jumping jacks, standing on my
| hands, doing handstands and other stuff like that. My
| coworker was a long time in the bathroom, maybe there was a
| line.
|
| While I was exercising one of the attendants from the flight
| we were supposed to get on came out and told me I would not
| be allowed to fly because I was obviously intoxicated.
|
| Now I towered over the guy, I was in a bad mood from the
| weekend already, and frankly, he was just the most alcoholic
| looking Dane you could imagine, with a comical little pug
| nose red and purplish like the cartoon vision of a town drunk
| from the 1940s. So I nearly lost my temper at him, and was
| near to getting stranded in Amsterdam because of how
| irritated I was by the ludicrous assertion that anyone doing
| the things I was doing could possibly be drunk!
|
| Just then my coworker came out and saved me, when he was told
| I was being accused of being drunk he started laughing
| because of course in Denmark a person who doesn't drink is
| already sort of funny.
|
| So after some convincing I was let on to the plane. Later,
| after we lifted off, the little dipsomaniac steward came to
| apologize to me and as a way of making up for it said my
| coworker and I could have free drinks! He suggested a nice
| beer, or some wine, or some champagne. Anything I wanted! I
| said - I will have a Coke thank you. (but I was not able to
| do it without sounding annoyed)
|
| My coworker took a red wine. He had laughing bouts several
| times on the flight back.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| Yes, in my experience tickets are often not _refundable_ but
| they do have value that can be applied to another flight if
| for whatever reason you become unable to use the ticket on
| the flight originally booked.
| etrautmann wrote:
| I missed a flight in Oslo two years ago and the counter agent
| looked at me like I was insane to suggest that they airline
| would rebook me. In Norway it was clear that the $800 ticket
| was completely wasted if I got delayed on the way to the
| airport.
| jaywalk wrote:
| I had no idea that the way it works in the US seems to be
| the outlier worldwide. Even the ultra-low cost airlines
| here (like Spirit) work this way.
| Symbiote wrote:
| That may explain why the European ultra-low-cost airlines
| are even cheaper, while providing a similar service.
|
| People who miss their flight on purpose aren't great for
| revenue (no vastly overpriced food, overweight luggage
| fees etc), but people who miss flights by mistake end up
| paying EUR250 (rather than EUR20) for the next flight.
| ohyoutravel wrote:
| Yeah, I was on the way to the airport the other day, my
| meeting got cancelled, so I called on the way 75 mins pre
| departure, and they just gave me a credit for the cost,
| zero hassle, and I went home.
| dagw wrote:
| The ability to rebook and refund your ticket is the thing
| you pay for when paying for a business class ticket.
| tschwimmer wrote:
| I have missed a few flights and if the ticket agent is feeling
| nice that day, they will traditionally rebook you on a flight
| later that day or the next day.
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| Missing your flight is one of those things where while it's a
| rare event for you it's a common event for the airline. For
| them people missing their flight for a lame reason is just
| noise compared to people missing flights for other reasons.
|
| Think about it. A flight to Atlanta is delayed due to weather
| or a mechanical issue? That's 100 people that just missed
| their connection. Vs random people missing flights is very
| predictable.
| paxys wrote:
| Yes missing flights is surprisingly not too big a deal, even if
| it is your own fault. Most airlines will do their best to
| rebook you.
|
| The main reason for that is that there was never really a seat
| booked with your name on it. If you don't make it, it simply
| goes to someone else who was on standby.
|
| Of course the flip side of it is that in rare cases you won't
| get your seat even if you _do_ make it in time, as was the
| subject of some famous incidents.
| [deleted]
| belter wrote:
| If you are planning to travel, always check if you actually got a
| ETicket (ETK) number. Most airlines companies do not really have
| all kinds of implementations with end to end transactions. It
| will happen to you maybe once in your whole flight traveler life.
|
| -> You get both the money taken out of your credit card plus an
| airline confirmation of your booking AND a booking number.
| However if the ETK number is missing you dont have a ticket and
| wont be allowed to fly.
|
| Tip to single bachelors: If the check-in counter is not too busy,
| and the ground hostess is attractive, it is a good pick up line.
| Go on asking if it happens frequently to other passengers and
| more frequently with other companies than others :-))
| johnshaft1000 wrote:
| On many airlines they use check-in as a way to try to upsell you
| on higher priced seats or other services.
| [deleted]
| mabbo wrote:
| I often am a sucker for those. I'm 188cm tall (6'2-ish). Long
| legs. For about $10 per hour of flight time, I'll pay more for
| a couple extra inches of leg room.
|
| During boarding, I have sometimes mentioned to the boarding
| agent or air staff that if someone in an exit row isn't able to
| perform the exit row duties, I'm happy to trade seats. A couple
| of times it's even worked.
| sandermvanvliet wrote:
| Being 2.08m tall (6'10) I _have_ to always pay extra because
| I don't fit in a regular seat. Many years ago at check in I
| would automatically be put on the exit row but nowadays that
| doesn't happen anymore. So now I need to book very early
| because otherwise the exit row seats are all gone.
| pottertheotter wrote:
| They have financially engineered every part of the process
| now.
| madengr wrote:
| rwmj wrote:
| Right, and of course there's the two hours spent looking at
| overpriced sandwiches and "duty free" booze. That's got to be
| worth something to someone.
| technothrasher wrote:
| I've assumed for a while that's the real reason they have it
| any more. Years ago it made sense that you checked in when you
| got to the airport so they knew you were physically there and
| they wouldn't give away your seat. But now, checking in from
| home up to 72 hours in advance sometimes completely fails for
| that purpose.
| tyingq wrote:
| Because they oversubscribe seats for sale. The check-in helps
| them see when that's a problem. Similarly, if it prompts a bunch
| of people to change flights, and the flight is very undersold,
| they might meld two flights together as a single one.
| blessedwhiskers wrote:
| Eric_WVGG wrote:
| I'm still confused.
|
| > You probably have noticed that you often buy your flight from a
| different company than the airline itself.
|
| What? No, never. I figured out long ago that one carrier always
| has the best rates for my city, middlemen rarely/never cost less,
| and I've got the frequent flier card and the points. I thought
| everyone who flew domestically more than twice a year did that.
|
| I thought the check-in was just to confirm "yes I'm really really
| going to fly tomorrow" so they can try to fill any unclaimed
| seats.
| techsupporter wrote:
| > one carrier always has the best rates for my city, middlemen
| rarely/never cost less
|
| Couple of things: First, the post is from 2014 which was still
| during the rise of online travel agents like Expedia and Orbitz
| and Travelocity and all of their kin. There was a lot of money
| sloshing around in those companies to try to give "exclusive
| discounts" to customers so that people would become accustomed
| to using the online travel agent instead of booking direct.
| Bundled travel packages are still very much a part of this and
| the spiff from a hotel being included can be used to buy down
| the cost of your ticket so the package looks cheaper.
|
| Second, if you are in a city where one carrier is in a position
| to dominate the rates for your area, an online travel agent
| isn't going to help you much and the carriers to your area know
| this so there's little incentive to try to slash prices to
| compete. But related to this is that a lot of people _don 't_
| know that, so they still go to the sites they see advertised on
| TV or elsewhere and plug in a starting point, a destination,
| some dates, then sort "lowest to highest" and pick the smallest
| number next to the $ sign.
| iams wrote:
| > I thought everyone who flew domestically more than twice a
| year did that.
|
| Not at all, I've never seen a flight cheaper direct with the
| airline than going through an agent.
| raverbashing wrote:
| So, the answer is: "it's complicated"
|
| You can get a cheaper ticket with an agent than with an
| airline _but_ this would be a ticket attached to certain
| conditions (for example, it can only be sold together with a
| hotel room)
|
| Another possibility is that you do a search and find it per X
| and then go to an agent and they find it cheaper _but_
| because they know how to look around your dates and
| possibilities you might not know (connection alternatives,
| etc).
|
| But to be fair, even if it's a little more expensive I prefer
| the peace of mind of dealing with one vendor instead of two
| vendors if anything happens.
| goblin89 wrote:
| > You can get a cheaper ticket with an agent than with an
| airline but this would be a ticket attached to certain
| conditions (for example, it can only be sold together with
| a hotel room)
|
| Ticket pricing is unpredictable and really depends on your
| location and route.
|
| A few times I used Expedia instead of the airline, and it
| was both cheaper and allowed flexible total unconditional
| cancellation within a short time after buying.
|
| Quite helpful when you need to arrange multiple bookings,
| hotels, etc. on short notice with changing availability.
| Plus there's that time I literally bought a same day ticket
| just to enter HKIA and meet arriving friend (a ticket was
| required due to protests). Returned it as soon as I passed
| the guards. With that low-cost airline it wouldn't be
| possible directly, and even if somehow it was the ordinary
| refund would've taken days. (After I saw their ticket
| verification procedures I realized a even a well-done fake
| might have sufficed, but you don't want to leave stuff like
| that to chance.)
|
| That said, in some countries I have never seen agents offer
| better options than airlines.
| joatmon-snoo wrote:
| The problem is that you're not dealing with one vendor
| though: you're actually dealing with N+1, where the +1 is
| just an opaque intermediary to the N services it's
| brokering/reselling.
|
| When there are no issues, this works fine.
|
| If there are issues? Be prepared to do the customer service
| tango, and hope that the person at check-in understands how
| $intermediary actually resells their stuff and knows the
| right knobs to twiddle, because otherwise you're shit outta
| luck.
| pxx wrote:
| > I figured out long ago that one carrier always has the best
| rates for my city, middlemen rarely/never cost less
|
| Is this WN out of Burbank or something? Your experience (to the
| first point) is not typical. To the second point, even
| restricting to one carrier, using a different ticketing carrier
| can indeed be advantageous, especially if you're using credit
| card-derived points.
|
| Now, if you're at an airport only served by a single (U)LCC I
| can see both points but that seems rare.
| CPLX wrote:
| You've never once flown an itinerary with two airlines on it?
| That's a very routine use case, for example hop on an American
| flight to London connecting to a BA flight to Glasgow or
| something? In that case you bought your ticket from a different
| company (AA) than the airline you're flying (BA on the second
| leg).
|
| That's just one of a million examples. For complex travel
| arrangements it's just normal.
| londons_explore wrote:
| Just imagine if other forms of transport used the same ticketing
| system...
|
| "I'm sorry sir, you can't get on the 09:03 Southbound Red Line
| express subway because you didn't check in 40 minutes before
| departure. Check in has now closed, so you'll have to buy a new
| ticket."
| hammock wrote:
| This scenario has happened to me with Amtrak. It also applies
| to some coach bus services.
| SilasX wrote:
| Yes! I ran into that with a coach bus one time (trip from
| some big Boston transit hub to NYC). I wanted to get on the
| bus but they told me I had to check in at some gate first,
| and I was like, "what? We have to do this like an airport?"
|
| And I didn't have to do that for the first leg (from NYC
| Chinatown).
| andi999 wrote:
| A long time ago, you somehow needed to reconfirm the flight 48
| hours before. Not sure what that function was.
| netsharc wrote:
| Probably a database/messaging consistency check via human, I
| wonder what a dropped packet is, back then. E.g. paper jam on
| the fax machine, "Hey what was that fax?" "Dunno, the machine
| ate it.".
|
| I once accompanied a travelling family member to the airport,
| and the airline didn't have a record of her ticket! This was in
| the pre-historic times before there was e-tickets, mobile
| checkin, etc.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-02-28 23:01 UTC)