Las Vegas airport tries souped-up check-in kiosks By Ben Mutzabaugh, USA TODAY The Las Vegas airport is set to unveil a new type of self-service kiosk=20 that some industry insiders say will do for airport lines what ATMs did for= =20 the bank teller queues =97 shorten them. The machines making their debut= next=20 month will be the first at any airport in the world to issue passenger=20 boarding passes for multiple airlines, industry officials say. Many=20 airlines now use similar kiosks, but they're only equipped to handle that=20 airline's customers. Las Vegas' SpeedCheck machines initially will be=20 accessible to America West, Continental and Delta passengers. Up to a dozen= =20 airlines could be online by summer's end, including Southwest, the=20 airport's largest carrier. Eventually, McCarran International will have as= =20 many as 42 kiosks accessible to passengers on all 28 airlines there,=20 officials say. Other airports are expected to roll out similar kiosks, says= =20 Colin Temple, manager of airport services for the International Air=20 Transport Association (IATA), the global airline trade group. IATA is=20 helping to develop a standard operating platform for the common-use kiosks,= =20 which Temple says will let other airports easily adopt the system. But for= =20 Las Vegas, SpeedCheck's advantages hit closer to home. The Transportation=20 Security Administration will soon require Las Vegas travelers to obtain=20 their boarding passes before passing through security, a mandate already in= =20 place at many airports. That threatens to put a huge strain on McCarran, which has one of the=20 highest volumes of travelers flying directly to or from the airport because= =20 of Las Vegas' popularity as a day-trip destination. Requiring all of those= =20 passengers to have boarding passes in hand would likely create huge lines=20 at both ticket counters and individual airline kiosks. That's a problem=20 airport officials hope the multi-airline kiosks can help them avoid.=20 SpeedCheck kiosks will be installed in traditional check-in areas and=20 clustered at locations throughout the airport =97 such as the parking garage= =20 =97 which will eliminate bottlenecks and increase the check-in capacity of= =20 the airport. Even the city's convention center is expected to get=20 SpeedCheck kiosks, allowing business travelers to have their boarding=20 passes in hand even before hailing a cab to the airport. Unlike the=20 airline-owned kiosks, the SpeedCheck system will be set up and maintained=20 almost exclusively by McCarran airport. That helps minimize costs for=20 airlines already struggling financially. Even with the maintenance costs,=20 the kiosks could save the airport tens of millions of dollars by avoiding=20 the need to expand ticketing areas, says McCarran official Samuel Ingalls,= =20 who's been working on the project. "Those savings extend to the airlines as= =20 well because, in the process, we're lowering their cost of doing business=20 here," he says. *************************************************** The owner of Roger's Trinbago Site/TnTisland.com Roj (Roger James) escape email mailto:ejames@xxxxxxxxx Trinbago site: www.tntisland.com Carib Brass Ctn site www.tntisland.com/caribbeanbrassconnection/ Steel Expressions www.mts.net/~ejames/se/ Mas Site: www.tntisland.com/tntrecords/mas2003/ Site of the Week: http://www.caribbeanfloral.com TnT Webdirectory: http://search.co.tt *********************************************************