Self-service bag check-in at airport

Self-service bag check-in at airport
7 Jul 2008, 0000 hrs IST,REUTERS

AMSTERDAM: Passengers departing from Amsterdam airport can now cut waiting times and minimize human contact by using a machine to check in their luggage.

Schiphol airport launched a trial with Dutch airline KLM on Friday that allows passengers who have checked in via a self-service kiosk or on the internet to drop off their luggage at a machine. The six-month trial is the first to be undertaken by any airport in the world, a KLM spokeswoman said.

Passengers place their luggage into a large, white machine, scan their boarding pass and answer the usual security questions via a touch-screen. The machine weighs the luggage and prints out a label that passengers attach to their suitcase.

The luggage will be subjected to the same security screening as bags checked in at the regular counter.

An employee will check passports during the trial to make sure that the luggage belongs to the passenger, but future machines will have the capability to scan passports as current self-service kiosks already do, the spokeswoman said.

Faced with increasing numbers of passengers, the Schiphol airport has been working towards the self-service baggage checks for two years.