Kiosk: No Limits — Delta Air Lines Takes Off With Self-Service Revolution

In the late 1990s, Delta Air Lines decided to develop its own self-service check-in kiosks to alleviate long checkin lines at ticket counters. The pilot program took about two years, and the first kiosks were deployed for the exclusive use of SkyMiles members to generate a boarding pass.

"We weren't able to keep up with customer volume at peak hours in the airline environment," said Susan Henderson, general manager of selfservice products for Delta Air Lines. Back then, it was not unusual for passengers to wait an hour in check-in lines to complete even the most basic transactions with a gate agent. As more passengers came to rely on selfservice options, Delta realized internal resources could not keep pace with technology developments and surging airline travel.

As air traffic has grown, the brickand- mortar space of airports has stayed the same. Airlines have to figure out how to handle more traffic without physically expanding space at the gates or adding agents. "One agent might be quicker than one kiosk, but one agent can't be quicker than eight kiosks," Henderson said.

With the Kinetics (subsidiary of self-service provider NCR) products, Delta expanded its self-service offerings to include changing seat assignments, changing flights, adding a frequent flyer number, printing a boarding pass and checking luggage. Delta launched a massive communications campaign to entice passengers to try the kiosks, which now were open to all passengers, not just members of the frequent flyer program.