British Airways trialling automatic check-in at 6 hours before departure

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

• zsalya says:

  24 Jan24 January 08:41

  I expect the thought process was “We have set up for people to check in online 24 hours beforehand. Not many of them are doing it. Let’s very much encourage them to do so”.
  Maybe increasing this ratio is on someone’s Objectives.

  I completely agree that Easyjet (30 days ahead) and Ruanair (15 days ahead) are much better solutions to getting everybody to arrive with their boarding pass.
  (How do BA expect everyone to find a printer if one is flying back on a Sunday evening afer being away for a weekend, or are they sending QR codes?)
  But as I only realised when I started changing Easyjet flexible tickets, Easyjet has a fundamentally different concept of what check-in means, and changing to that would be an awful lot to ask of a legacy carrier, for systems, processes, and staff.

  (One can change flights or seat after one has checked in and printed the boarding pass.
  To cope with boarding passes which have been superceded, at boarding the computer flags up where a change has been made and the gate clerk has specifcally checks the seat number/reference ID)

  • Aeronaut says:

    25 Jan25 January 09:49

    Ryanair changed their check-in arrangements a couple of years ago – if you have *not* booked a specific seat, then you can only check-in from 7 days beforehand. If you have booked a specific seat then you can check-in up to 30 days beforehand.

    This change happened at the same time that they released a proper mobile app that you could use to check-in and get a mobile boarding pass with.

• harry says:

  24 Jan24 January 09:13

  I wonder why they don’t simply switch to the EJ/ Ryanair/ Wizz ticketing model? – ie print your own boarding pass in advance or we’ll charge you £25 at the airport. It hasn’t stopped Ryanair moving over million passengers a year, so you can’t counter with the ‘geriatrics won’t like it’ argument.

  Nice easy way to eliminate half the queues at airport check-in.

  • harry says:

    24 Jan24 January 10:16

    *100 million

    Not a bad number 🙂

  • John says:

    24 Jan24 January 11:26

    Because BA is linked with the legacy GDS and airlines around the world, which have complicated agrements about who is issuing reservations and tickets, who is paying, and needing to pass control between travel agents and airports and interlining

    With low-cost point to point airlines, you pay and that’s it, no turning up at the airport to find that you “haven’t been ticketed”

  • Aeronaut says:

    25 Jan25 January 09:54

    Whilst easyJet asks that you check-in online, they don’t actually penalise you if you then check-in at a desk. This is in contrast to the Ryanair and Wizz model.

• Callum says:

  24 Jan24 January 09:37

  I’m struggling to understand the outrage here. I’ve changed my seat at the airport multiple times and the only time it’s taken longer than a check in would was when flying HBO (when I shouldn’t be allowed to change anyway).

  I find it hard to believe none of you, including Rob, knows how check in and seat changes work, so am I missing something big? The only downside I can see is someone being automatically allocated the seat you want, though if it’s normally blocked until you arrive at the airport is that very likely?

  • harry says:

    24 Jan24 January 10:19

    Why not just diarise to yourself to check in & select seat 24 hours-6 hours before the flight?

    I like my exit seats enough to check in the second check-in opens, T-24hrs, it’s not exactly difficult.

    • Lady London says:

      24 Jan24 January 11:17

      that’s nice for you @harry. but some of us like to roll straight off the beach onto the plane.

      • Callum says:

        24 Jan24 January 18:27

        You spend over 24 hours lying on the beach before your flight?

    • Aeronaut says:

      25 Jan25 January 09:56

      If you have a smartphone with the BA app and a data connection, then it shows a notification 24 hours before the flight reminding you that you can now check-in – doing so then takes a moment.

  • TGLoyalty says:

    24 Jan24 January 11:18

    seen HBO written a lot whats it short for, can’t be the TV network?

    • John says:

      24 Jan24 January 11:30

      hand baggage only

    • Jason says:

      25 Jan25 January 09:20

      The use of TLAs in comments in these posts really PMO!

      • Rob says:

        25 Jan25 January 11:04

        There is a house rule that TLAs, or indeed airport codes, do not appear in articles. Comments are out of my control!

• TheFamousJames says:

  24 Jan24 January 09:47

  I can confirm the trial is live and I was checked in for my LHR-EDI flight last night. The email came through around 1pm for a 6:35pm departure. At first I thought I was being spammed off the back of that BA breach last year. That notion was put to rest when I went to the BA app to check-in and was immediately presented with my boarding pass. Luckily in this case I already had the seat I wanted. Strangely (for me) this trial was coincident with me forgetting to checkin online for a flight last week. I was trying to figure out if BA had somehow moved into some magical, proactive customer service mode, i.e. we know you’re getting old and noticed you forgot to check in last week so thought we would would help you out this time. I guess that’s not what they were doing. Thanks Rob for letting us know. BA didn’t bother!

• Pol says:

  24 Jan24 January 09:50

  Surley this will cause problems with people on standby too. If everyone is checked in 6 hours before the flight how will BA know about no shows?

• JamesLHR says:

  24 Jan24 January 10:06

  BA are current cutting in a new check-in system made by Amadeus. The system is built around pre-allocation of seats through PCV and is a system built value of your travel on the respective flight. It takes into account factors such as ticket class, frequent flyer status etc and allocates seats accordingly when you are checked in. Changing seats messes up how the system works. I can see this trial being a part of that change.

  At the departure gate, offloads will be a nightmare for no shows, not all airports have positive boarding and when a coupon shows checked in, it will require offloading to be able to make any changes to the ticket. That increases workload.

  I can’t really see the benefits that this will present.

• Capvermell says:

  24 Jan24 January 10:12

  No shows will be customers who haven’t had their boarding pass scanned through security a set number of minutes before the flight. Presumably that will be 30 minutes before flight time given that customers are currently allowed a certain number of minutes from latest possible check in before flight (generally 40 minutes) and latest possible time they can transit through security. But passengers can always be checked in later than the minimum time as long as the captain of the flight is willing to accept them…….

  I think the big mistake BA have made here is not to only auto check-in their small but growing number of hand luggage only customers. This is because as those customers don’t have any hold luggage at all there is by definition a real financial saving if all of those customers don’t any longer have to deal with a check in counter designed to handle baggage. Also as hand luggage only customers are by definition generally low budget and on the cheapest tickets they can then also safely be assigned the worst non changeable seats at the back of the plane without any high revenue yielding customers being affected by or upset by this process.

  • John says:

    24 Jan24 January 11:35

    BA already tries to force everyone to use the check in machines. Does anyone actually queue up for a desk if they don’t have luggage? Apart from people with abysmal eyesight or severe problems with their fingers…

    • Aeronaut says:

      25 Jan25 January 09:58

      If there’s no queue…

• Naf says:

  24 Jan24 January 10:21

  This will see the end for BA to overbook flights.

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.