I guess the youngs don’t have the money to do this 
Even if I’m only packing a carry on I will sometimes check it for a long trip. I used to regularly fly to India for work. As the trip was only a week, I could easily get everything in a carry on bag. But rather than deal with the bag for a 4 hour layover in Paris or Frankfurt I’d check the bag to make my life easier.
But some trips require packing enough for checked bags. You youngsters stay off of my lawn.
That matches my experience with the boarding pass kiosks. I just flew a couple days ago from Midway (Chicago) and there were, as always, plenty of open kiosks. I didn’t use them this time but I have many times in the past, and I don’t recall ever waiting (well maybe waiting for one person to finish up) — there’s plenty of them and now that people are using their phones for their boarding pass, there’s even more freed up.
My airline app is one of the most important apps on my phone. Before COVID I flew 75,000 miles per year, mostly on one airline. The app is a very convenient way to check in, change seats, get upgrades, pick out my meal, and change flights.
(and I say this as someone who a few years ago couldn’t imagine any utility in having a smart phone)
Which means the accountants are going to start phasing a lot of them out. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but don’t get used to no lines.
Interesting point. When I’m in an airport, I tend to walk around non-stop until shortly before boarding, which means if I’ve got a carry-on with me, I’m dragging it behind me the entire time. Tolerable for a 60-minute stint, but more of a hassle for a multi-hour international layover.
Of course, but it’s likely the balance will remain. When I was using them when literally no one was using phone passes I may have at worst had to wait for a person to finish up using the kiosk. I’m thinking back to circa 2005. Lines were really only at the ticket counter/baggage check in counter.
I’m sitting at a gate at Philadelphia Intl Airport now!
I left O’Hare a few days ago for a pleasure visit. When ‘checking in’ the day before leaving home, I was very surprised to find that I wasn’t given the option for an electronic boarding pass. I had to use the kiosk (no line/wait, btw) at ORD departures like Herbert Hoover used to use. Then, it printed a ‘verification’ slip which got me through security. I had to go to the gate agent to get my boarding pass & seat assignment. Super primative, I’m not sure what that was about.
While at the row of shoe & belt tables approaching the xray, I noticed a lost boarding pass next to the bins. Someone was in for a bit of a panic at the gate. There’s little chance of that happening with a QR code on a device.
Last year when flying with my parents, my dad printed our boarding passes at home. There was a flaw in the printing of his QR code which you couldn’t really notice unless really looking for it. He had to exit the security line, print a new boarding pass and wait through the security line again. Again, probably never an issue using an electronic devive.
Were you flying on a “basic economy” fare? IIRC with those fares you’re not given a seat assignment until check-in. But, if the flight is overbooked all the seats might already be assigned by the time you check in. So if that happens you’re not given a seat assignment until you’re get to the gate, and they can see who hasn’t shown up and give you their seat.
When that happened to me on Delta I’m pretty sure I was given a boarding pass – an electronic one even, but under seat assignment it just said “assigned at gate” or something like that. When the gate agent assigned me a seat he printed a new boarding pass for me, but the electronic version on my phone was also automatically updated with the new seat assignment.
I do. I always fly Southwest, which doesn’t charge for two checked bags, and doesn’t have assigned seats. It’s much less stressful to breeze onto the plane carrying nothing except a book or a Kindle; you can grab the first empty seat that appeals to you, whereas almost everybody else is desperately fighting for space in the overhead bins. IMHO, this is well worth the minor inconvenience of using the baggage claim at the destination airport.
Also, before boarding, I can kill time wandering around the terminal without dragging a bag behind me.
I was going to write almost exactly this. Plus, I can pack my Swiss Army knife so I have it with me at my destination, and I’m not limited to tiny travel size toothpaste and shaving cream.
Wresting a roller bag into a bathroom is no fun either. Spending five or ten minutes at the luggage carousel is a small price to pay for the convenience.
Now that you mention, that’s probably what happened. They were indeed offering vouchers for rebooking. But that has happened a lot and I’ve never had to go to the gate to get a boarding pass. Another just-remembered detail: the boarding passes were apparently already printed when I approached the gate agent. She rifled through a stack for the person in front of me as well as mine.
Ah well, no big deal, all’s well that ends well. I’m back home now after a few neat days in Philly.
That just illustrates that different things work for different folks. I haven’t flown commercially since the 20th Century. Sure, from about 1995 to 2007 I flew 2-4 times a month, but check-in, boarding passes, and seat assignments were not required (private pilot fun). If I find a need to fly on an airborne Greyhound I’ll see what works for me.
I’m sure, not having bought a commercial ticket for… oh, nearly 25 years now that I’d have to re-learn how to use the airlines anyway. I’d probably wind up downloading an app for the duration of my trip then uninstall it when I’m done.