Virgin Australia is ditching traditional online check-in kiosks for a one-stop system allowing passengers to tag their bags and drop them without a separate scan of the boarding pass.
The change is anticipated to slash boarding processing times, maybe by as much as half, while saving the airline money. It will also bring the local travel experience a small step closer to the possibilities seen in airports elsewhere, like Singapore and Hong Kong.
With the change, the majority of passengers who have checked in on their app can now, upon arrival at the airport, print out their bag tag and drop their luggage at a designated point “powered by advanced camera and barcode recognition technology”, the airline said.
The one step automated bag drop removes the need for travellers to line up at a kiosk to print out boarding passes and bag tags and then scan their boarding pass again at the bag drop.
“Uber really revolutionised this friction-free experience,” Virgin’s General Manager of Digital Alex Plummer said. “You no longer have to pay for the taxi at the end of the fare – you just get out; this bag drop experience will feel a lot more like that.”
Eight in 10 Virgin passengers already use the airline’s online check-in channels, either through the website or the app, Plummer said.
There will be a dedicated Priority Bag Drop area for Velocity frequent flyer Gold, Platinum and Platinum Plus members.
The race for a better tech-enhanced passenger experience has been under way for some time among airlines – with a recent boost from the rollout of AI platforms.
“There is an underlying difference for aviation compared to some other industries, and that’s the complexity of the technology landscape,” said Plummer. This is one reason why many airline booking experiences feel the same – they use a lot of the same underlying technology managed by the same partners.
Virgin’s competition with Qantas is fierce. In March, Qantas’ Frequent Flyer program launched the Flight Reward Finder, allowing loyalty members to search for reward seats by region, cabin class, and specific travel periods. Qantas has also cut the ribbon on a new tech and digital experience centre in Adelaide.
In 2022, Qantas upgraded its kiosks for use primarily for bag tag printing, although their bag drop requires guests to rescan their boarding pass. Qantas has also rolled out a reusable, trackable bag tag for frequent fliers that functions similarly to an Apple AirTag.
Beginning this week, Virgin’s check-in innovation is expected to roll out in Sydney, Brisbane, Perth, Darwin, Mackay, and the Sunshine Coast first, followed later by Melbourne, Adelaide, Launceston and Gold Coast airports.
Also moving from the kiosk to the Virgin Velocity app is the ability for eligible passengers to select an earlier same-day flight if disruption is expected. Velocity Gold, Platinum and Platinum Plus members can change flight times in the airline’s mobile app at no cost.
UNSW Sydney aviation professor Ian Douglas said bag tag development “is good tech, a step forward”. It “saves airlines money and gives customers more control of the process”. Checking bags is “usually the most likely moment to have stress and jam-ups”, he said.
But “the efficiency gains from moving various tasks to the customer (online booking, online check-in, automated boarding, etc) have mostly been captured already,” he said. “Short of going to the galley and serving yourself a meal, there’s not much more you can do for yourself.”
Virgin’s Plummer said his team of 15 people working on apps ranges from product managers to designers, developers and testers.
In 2023, Virgin piloted an in-app baggage tracking tool giving notifications to passengers when their bag was ready to fly, loaded onto a plane, and when it arrived at the baggage carousel.
“We have over the last four years moved from working with partners to now primarily building it in-house,” said Plummer. In-house work allows the company to move quickly and keep a consistent experience across all of its different channels, he says.
It’s not only airlines who benefit from a streamlined bag drop. Austria-based Beumer Group, which builds the physical self-service bag-drop systems, says the advantages for airports are shorter check-in queues, less congestion as passengers pass through the check-in hall, and better space utilisation.
Letting passengers take care of their baggage “in a more time-friendly fashion frees up airline personnel to focus more on customer relationship building”, the company says.
And retailers at the terminals benefit as well: self-service bag drops carve out more “dwell time” and spending opportunity for passengers at their shops, according to Beumer.
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CLARIFICATION
This story has been changed to clarify that the new system from Virgin means passengers don’t need to scan their boarding pass at the bag drop area.
Chris Zappone is a senior reporter covering aviation and business. He is former digital foreign editor.Connect via X, Facebook or email.