Why Do Airlines Still Make You Check In When They Already Have Your Money?

You book the flight, pay for it, pick your seat, and hand over your passport details. Then, 24 hours before departure, you're expected to perform one more ritual: checking in. A piece in View from the Wing argues that this step has outlived its usefulness — and that airlines should simply do it for you.

The logic is straightforward. Check-in once meant physically showing up at an airport counter, when airlines worked from paper records and even needed to reconcile accounts with partner carriers. There was also a period when travellers had to phone in to reconfirm reservations — a requirement carriers quietly dropped decades ago. Online check-in arrived in 1999, courtesy of Alaska Airlines, the same airline that first sold tickets on the web back in 1995. But tapping a button from your sofa a day ahead doesn't actually tell the airline anything it doesn't already know. It still has no idea whether you'll reach the gate on time.

So what does check-in actually accomplish? It triggers back-office processes: boarding pass issuance, seat assignment, upgrade list placement, document checks. All of these, the argument goes, could run automatically. Check-in also helps airlines forecast no-shows and gives them a cutoff for releasing seats to standby passengers — and since check-in is a regulatory benchmark, missing it lets carriers deny overbooking compensation. In other words, the current system benefits the airline more than the passenger.

Some automation already exists. Delta launched automatic check-in for eligible domestic travellers on its app in October 2017, though passengers still had to acknowledge hazardous items rules. Lufthansa offers auto check-in on certain fares, as does LATAM on domestic bookings made directly. easyJet opens its check-in window a full 30 days before departure, which shows the 24-hour convention isn't set in stone either.

There are genuine obstacles. US rules require dangerous-goods acknowledgments at boarding pass issuance, and security screening under the Secure Flight program transmits passenger data roughly 72 hours before departure. Those are real requirements — but they could be handled as prompts or exceptions rather than a mandatory chore for everyone. Someone with a dead phone battery shouldn't lose their seat because they failed to complete a step the airline could have done itself.

For travellers, the takeaway is partly practical and partly a nudge at the industry. Set your airline's app to auto check-in if it offers it — Delta, Lufthansa and LATAM customers may already be covered. Otherwise, set a reminder for the check-in window, because missing a cutoff genuinely can cost you your seat or your compensation rights on an overbooked flight. And if you're the type who likes a paper boarding pass, know that you're still entitled to ask for one at the airport, however much carriers nudge everyone toward their apps. Whether the airlines eventually bury the check-in button altogether, the debate is a reminder that plenty of friction in air travel persists because it always has — not because it has to.