The time it takes to check in your luggage at the Bengaluru airport will reduce starting today after an automated baggage check-in facility was introduced for passengers.
Officials at the Kempegowda International Airport (KIA) explained that passengers who opt for a web check-in will be able to drop their bags without waiting in long queues and head directly to the boarding gate.
“The passenger needs to go to these machines placed at the counters of the specific airline and place the check-in luggage on the conveyer belt near the counter. The weight of the luggage is digitally displayed. If it tallies with the luggage specifications of the airline, then a slip bearing the bar code for the luggage is printed and tagged to the luggage by the machine,” a source at the airport told The New Indian Express.
After this, the passenger has to key in the PNR number into the boarding pass kiosk, which will automatically issue the boarding pass. The tagged luggage will be automatically routed to the cargo hold.
The facility will initially be operational in 16 counters belonging to AirAsia and SpiceJet and will be scaled up to all 83 counters at the airport if it is found to be effective.
The KIA is the second airport in the country to have the self bag drop system after it was introduced in Terminal 1 of the Mumbai airport in June. The Bengaluru airport already has a self check-in kiosk and with the addition of the self bag drop facility, it appears that the airport is looking to cut down the time taken by passengers to check in and board a flight.
The development comes at a time the airport is looking to become the first airport in Asia to have end-to-end solutions for paperless travel. The airport is readying a biometric self-boarding technology that will see users check in without carrying a boarding pass. The system, which will be first used by Jet Airways and SpiceJet, is set to be introduced in the first quarter of 2019.