Alaska Airlines is offering another time-saving feature for passengers in Portland and Seattle: bag check with facial recognition to avoid having to wait in line for someone to verify your ID.
Although this feature isn’t an industry first, it’s an important improvement. Alaska has had some notable firsts.
From ChatGPT:
First Airline to Sell a Ticket Online (1995)
This is their most famous claim to fame. In 1995, Alaska Airlines became the first airline in the world to allow customers to book and purchase a flight over the internet. This innovation fundamentally changed how travel is sold and paved the way for the modern e-commerce and online travel agency landscape we know today.
First Airline with Online Check-In (1999)
Building on their web-based success, Alaska was the first airline in the world to introduce online check-in. This allowed passengers to check in for their flight and print their own boarding passes from their home or office, a revolutionary convenience that helped passengers bypass long lines at the airport.
Air travel is one of the rare cases where interests are aligned between customers and businesses.
(The information below is based on having flown 2 million mile across dozens of carriers. As with all things travel, there are exceptions and airlines that handle things differently.)
We’ve already seen a lot of innovation in the time I’ve been flying.
| Old way | New way |
| Carry paper ticket | E-ticketing |
| Wait in line to check in | Mobile boarding passes, online check in, kiosks |
| Wait in line to drop my bag (in the rare cases I do) | Face recognition to check bags (this is what Alaska just announced) |
| Wait in longer lines at security for people who rarely travel fumbling for things | TSA Pre✓ and Clear Plus |
| Wait for a refund | E-tickets mean you don’t have to return paper tickets |
| Wait in line for an hour for flight changes | Many airlines automatically re-book; if those options don’t work, you can use a mobile app to find alternatives |
| Stay over a Saturday night to get the best fares | The rise of low-cost carriers all but eliminated Saturday night stay requirements |
These changes weren’t just cost cutting — they removed friction for travelers and streamlined operations for airlines.
I see a lot of innovation ahead, some which are starting to take shape.
AI
This is an interesting one because the definition has been so vague and misused. Airlines have been using machine learning and predictive modeling to set price and fleet management for decades.
When I talk about AI, I mean new tools like LLMs and user agents.
The most obvious use for AI for airlines is better answering user customer service inquiries. Unfortunately, most of the tools out there now are dumb bots. They don’t incorporate things like my status, itinerary and previous interactions. The best LLM-linked bots will also incorporate the reference tools airline agents access.
Not much further down the AI path is user agents. Instead of booking through the airline Web site, agents will do the searches on my behalf. (What you see now is dumb AI, which is just a fancy screen scraper. They may be marketed as agents, but they’re not.) Airlines need to be paying attention to agents that use MCP and testing ways to integrate with their systems.
The upside for airlines: ability to cut out OTAs and integrate their direct-connect capabilities. It eliminates fees that GDS’s charge and makes it easier to sell ancillaries like premium seats and lounge access.
One key to AI is to not lose trust. If an AI gives a response, it should be treated just like an agent gave that response.
Air Canada refused to honor a response from a chat bot, saying the bot was inaccurate. This led to a social media firestorm and a lawsuit that Air Canada lost. It’s much better in the long run to maintain trust.
This is just on the customer side. There is a lot of room for using LLMs in maintenance, pilot resources, irrops strategy and ad targeting.
Mobile
Airlines have been making big leaps using mobile for all areas of the travel experience. On the consumer side, you can manage new bookings, change flights, flight status and more.
- Hotel vouchers sent straight to our phones for irrops: Don’t make me stand in a long line for a paper slip after a cancellation. A mobile voucher also tells me the quality of the hotel being offered — no more roulette with substandard properties.
- Meal vouchers: Sent to our phones. United already sends you virtual debit cards, though they should be Apple Pay or Google Pay provisioned. (Many merchants don’t know how to type in credit card numbers.)
- Delayed baggage: When the airline knows a bag has been left behind at the previous station, send a pre-filled delayed baggage form. This saves the passenger and the baggage service staff time. Vouchers can also be sent. It’s a great time to be looking at this while airlines integrate IATA 753, a mandate on how baggage must be tracked.
CTI (Computer Telephony Integration)
We’re already seen integration between your actions online and the experience you get when you call. With better CTI, that process will become more seamless. This is one of the best cases of aligning interests. Less time on the phone is good for me and the airline.
If you have a phone that is registered to your account:
- The agent should have my next reservation already on screen.
- If I was recently on the Web site, skip all the prompts and go to an agent who is prepped with what you were trying to do. (I don’t need to hear that you have a Web site, because I was just there.)
- Take user state into account. if I just got off a flight and had checked bags, my call may should be handled differently
The caveat here is that caller ID and ANI can be faked. Airlines need to do a basic level of authentication before jumping into the conversation. Increasingly voice authentication can be defeated using AI. Pull up the record, but ask a question that only I know the answer to.
Less time in line or on hold is good for passengers and airlines. The same technology that cuts friction also cuts costs — if airlines use it to build trust instead of deflect service.
Bottom line: Less time in line or on hold is good for passengers and airlines. The same technology that cuts friction also cuts costs — if airlines use it to build trust instead of deflect service.
redesign | mobile 