Nation’s First Shared Ticketing Machines Go Live

McCarran International Airport, Las Vegas, has installed and switched on the nation's first ticketing kiosks serving multiple airlines. The airport's initial installation, which cost it about $2 million in hardware and software, includes more than 30 self-service machines at the airport itself and another six hooked up at the Las Vegas Convention Center. The machines, dubbed SpeedCheck by McCarran, which owns them and the service mark, allow air travelers to check in and print boarding passes from a dozen participating airlines, including Continental, Delta, Southwest, and United. More will be added later in the fall. Kiosk users navigate from a “selection screen” to access the check-in system of the airline they're flying, creating for travelers what the Clark County Department of Aviation calls in a statement “unprecedented customer service and convenience,” since users don't have to seek out the machines installed by the individual carriers. The McCarran SpeedCheck kiosks are currently scattered throughout Terminal 1, near security checkpoints. Plans for the project's second phase call for installing the kiosks at airline ticket counters to allow for printing baggage tags for checked luggage. The system is the first fruit of years of effort among airports and airlines internationally to create standards for shared ticketing kiosks, an effort organized through the International Air Transport Association. To launch the system, McCarran and systems integrator ARINC Airport Systems worked with the participating airlines, providing application and integration support. The kiosk vendor is IBM Inc., which claims to have more than 3,000 self-service check-in kiosks installed or on order.