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Jet Airways considers hotels as potential offsites for check-in kiosks

Bhisham Mansukhani-Mumbai

Jet Airways will consider hotels as potential offsite locations apart from its own sales offices and other city locations for its recently launched check-in kiosks. The facility, which is an international mainstay but has been introduced in India by Jet Airways, is currently available at airports in Mumbai (2), Delhi (2) and Bangalore (1). The airline has installed five in all, with a view to cut down mounting queues at domestic airports and citing the possibility of lack of space at airports for ramping up the number of units, Jet Airways vice president marketing, Gaurang Shetty, said the airline will look at offline locations, primarily hotels. Jet Airways plans to put out at least 30 kiosks in the first phase.

The facility, which for now is extended only to passengers without check-in luggage, will gradually also include those with luggage to check-in. Jet Airways CEO Wolfgang Prock-Schauer said, "We want to start by offering the facility at a basic level before we introduce more sophistication which invariably entails more complexity. We will take it to the next level in a staggered manner. Overseas, the trend of check-in kiosks for passengers with check-in luggage is on the rise and we will extend this facility in time to include international flights as well."

When asked about the potential shortage of space at terminals to accommodate check-in kiosks, Shetty said, "We can consider offsite locations for the kiosks and that opens up a number of avenues like our own sales offices, hotels and petrol pumps. The number of kiosks we add depends on the level of usage. We will not be including the facility to book tickets on these kiosks as that could possibly stretch fulfillment time which could lead to long queues and inconvenience."

Only passengers with e-tickets will be able to avail of the check-in kiosks. Shetty said he expected the domestic BSP programme to roll out by June and given that this would enable travel agents to issue domestic e-tickets, this facility would be accessible to several more passengers, as travel agents account for 80 per cent of Jet Airways' ticket sales. The check-in procedure involves swiping the card, entering the PNR number, confirm the itinerary, selecting a seat and printing the boarding pass. Passengers can check in anywhere between 24 hours and 45 minutes before take-off.