I got an e-mail, within the last hour, urging me to check in for the flight I’m taking tomorrow night.
Ummm … why? My departing airport is about 180 miles away from where I am right now.
To me, “checking-in for a flight” means, “I’m at the airport and ready to go.” Not “I’m 180 miles away and hope not to break down on the highway between here and there tomorrow, and my flight’s in 24 hours anyway.” When my flight has been confirmed, and if I don’t show, my seat will be empty. Insurance will make sure that I am reimbursed if I break down on the highway and cannot make my flight.
To those of us who do not live in large cities served by major international airports, and whose flights have been confirmed in any event, what’s the point of an early check-in? Especially if you’re not at the airport?
Yeah, the biggest reason is that if you don’t have checked baggage you can just go straight through without lining up at the check-in desk. And if you get delayed, you might be too late to check in at the airport, but if you already have your boarding pass you might be in time to get through.
In addition to skipping the airport check-in when we just have carry-on bags so we can go straight to the security line —
As a family of four, we want to make sure there aren’t any hassles getting us seated together, so we do advance check-in to lock down our seating assignments. If we wait until we arrive, there’s a nonzero chance our assignments will be separated and we have to negotiate with the counter agent to get ourselves moved around. Easier just to have that squared away immediately.
If you’re a solo traveler and you don’t care where you sit, obviously that’s not a consideration.
Almost all flights are oversold, The airline has to bump some people off the flight. Who they choose to kick off is a very tightly held trade secret. But they have to choose somebody.
If you haven’t checked in early, my guess is that they will choose you.
Alan Joyce, the now very-bad-smell former CEO of QANTAS, is a mathematician by training and rose up via the number-crunching stream of organisational management to successfully keep the company financially buoyant during covid.
I remember a quote he gave early in his CEO career in an interview with a science reporter about the mathematics of plane travel - it was along the line of ‘there is nothing that has less value than an empty seat on a plane that has taken off.’ Airlines have to pay for the flight regardless - its in their interest to fill every seat. Although you’ve paid for a ticket, if you dont turn up on the day, its a missed opportunity to sell it to someone else. The tenor of his discussion was that its about doing what you can to milk every cent from the paying customer, and using a good understanding of stats to structure every aspect of financial arrangements to make things work in your favour.
In the case of early bookings, it might be that the prompt will either make you turn up or be more likely to let them know you can’t make it and they can re-sell the seat. Planes cost money to flyregardless and a full load is probably more cost-effective than a half-full one.
Other than the poser just above, all those posts are good reasons for teh customer to want to early check-in. Who gets bumped has a lot more to do with who bought the cheapest ticket than order of check-in.
So why do the airlines do it?
One of the airline’s goals is to discover as soon as possible how many of he bookings were “speculative” as they say in the trade, where one person has booked several flights to the same destination intending to use just one. Or someone has booked a flight, their plans have since changed, but being lazy, selfish, or chronically disorganized, they didn’t intend to tell the airline about that; instead they just weren’t going to show up.
They have lots of statistical experience on how the public responds to the early check-in reminders. And from the shape of that response curve on any particular flight they can begin to see how the final load is shaping up. So they can start selling more cheap fares over the internet to fill unused seats if necessary. Or back off from selling them.
Another issue is the number of disorganized adult children in the world who simply would forget they had a flight that day if their Mom didn’t remind them. You’d be surprised how much that’s true. A reminder 2 hours prior would be useless; if they weren’t already on their way they couldn’t make it. But 24 hours gives Dolly & Danny Disorganized a chance.
Trust me, you want that boarding pass securely in your possession in advance with your seat number on it. If something goes sideways, you don’t want to find out about it an hour before your flight.
Checking in early means you don’t have to stand in line to get your boarding pass (and allow time for worst case waits in lines to get your boarding pass). It is also an opportunity to change to a better seat (24 hours ahead is better than asking at the gate), and find out the time boarding will start (a more important time than the departure time). If you are checking bags, you can do the bag check at check in and just print your luggage tag at a kiosk and turn you bag in at the airport. And, if I’m still correct, check in time on Southwest determines boarding position, which determines whether you get a decent seat.
If you are getting an email, I’m guessing that means you don’t have the airline’s app on your phone. The first piece of advice I give to friends and relatives that don’t fly much is to join the frequent flyer program and download the app when you buy your ticket, even if you never intend to fly on that airline again. The app allows easy check with all the functions I list above, and also provides constant updates on flight status, boarding gates and changes in gates, and even if the plane that you’ll be flying out on is at the airport yet (the “where is this flight coming from” function). If you are in a lousy seat, you can keep checking on availability and usually snag at least a slightly better seat.
Even though I fly one airline about 90% of the time, I have 9 airline apps on my phone (I just counted them).
Given these answers, then why is there a 24-hour window? Why not allow check-in at the moment you pay for your ticket?
And what happens if you check in, but then miss your flight for whatever reason? Even if you have a refundable ticket, is the airline going to say, “Sorry, we have a record that you checked in for the flight, so too bad.”
See the above references to humans having the attention span and memory of gnats. 24 hours is probably pushing it for some people.
I missed the first leg of a ticketed itinerary last winter for the first time ever, I think. It was not much hassle (I was in business class with miles). United booked me on a Delta flight with apologies that there was no business class available, and I made it home 20 minutes earlier than I would have originally. YMMV.
Because literally everything about a flight is variable up to almost the last minute. I’m taking a trip next month in which I booked the flights 5-6 months ago, and the airline has updated the flights, the planes, the departure times, and my seat probably 10 times in that period. “Checking in” under those circumstances would serve no purpose, I’d have had to check in for every change. Might as well wait until they’re sure they know what plane I’ll be on.
And again, everything is changeable, right up until they push back from the gate, and even then, if the plane breaks down, things can change. So if you check in online, and then don’t scan your boarding pass to physically get on the plane, they know there’s an empty seat, and can offer it to someone else.
They’ll make a good-faith effort to find you first*, but at some point, you’ll get bumped if you no-show.
*I was once stuck in a stupid security line just a gate or two away from my plane, and they actually sent someone to call my name at the security line. When they saw where I was, they said they could hold it for a few minutes, but to literally run to the plane once I got past security. They started pushing the plane back before I even got to my seat, and the flight attendant told me to just stick my carry-on in the first spot I could find, and they’d sort it out in the air.
Much of the above does not apply to European flights, which are mostly international.
We always have the opportunity (for a charge) to pre-book seats at or after confirming a booking.
The idea of booking a number of flights and picking one later does not happen here because you have to pay upfront.
AFIK flights are rarely deliberately oversold. Getting “bumped” is usually the result of some earlier flight having had a problem.
Checking in at the airport is okay, but doing it in your hotel or home the day before is easier. Some airlines charge you if you want a printed boarding pass at the check-in desk.
I assume that the airline uses the time to prepare manifests etc. and, yes, it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that Dolly & Danny Disorganized might need a reminder that they are flying off somewhere tomorrow.
Right, and now you can even pay extra for the privilege of that early check-in, since the airlines have figured out how to exploit whatever pre-flight anxiety people may be experiencing, and turn that into a revenue stream. It used to be enough to just have a reservation confirmed, but NOOooo, now everyone’s worried about getting to the airport on time, the line for boarding passes, TSA line, seating together, carry-on bag storage, etc, etc… Airlines are thinking “ch-ching, ch-ching, ch-ching!”
It’s not just airlines. I get texts from hotels and hospitals now asking me to check in a day or two ahead of time. My sense is they want to avoid no-shows in an attempt to manage guest/patient loads accordingly.
When I get them from Dr’s offices and hospitals, they make a little more sense. They verify my contact and insurance info , let me pay copays etc. And they also remind me of the appointment and let me cancel if I won’t make it , just like phone calls did in the days before email/texts.
The airline does not care if you are a mile away or 200 miles away or how easy your trek through security and the airport is. They want to know you are committed to being on that plane tomorrow. That way they can get a sense of who might not show up and figure out what to do with the people they sold seats to but do not have room for.
Even if you do have checked baggage, most airlines now have a separate bag drop station where you can check your bag if you’ve already checked in. You might still have to stand in line, but the bag drop line generally moves faster than the check-in line. At JFK (and probably some other airports) JetBlue have you print your own bag tag at a kiosk, tag it yourself, and drop it on the conveyor belt.