have you actually ever loaded an airplane?
Many times – but with the airplanes I deal with, no boarding passes, no check-ins and no pallets are involved.
I’ve obviously not loaded an airliner – but I fly with them as a passenger on a weekly basis and from that point of view, I still don’t see – like Vladimir – even after we’ve discussed the cargo loading procedures in detail, what relevance the “check-in” process (or rather: the “checked-in” status of a passenger) has in today’s environment.
Me checking in on a Sunday morning for a Monday morning flight is just simply entirely disconnected from the likelihood of me actually boarding that flight. There is no correlation. I will check-in 24 hours before the flight to secure my favorite seat. Always. During the process, I will acknowledge that I’m not carrying any dangerous goods and bladibladibla…
Now, in many cases, I will make use of that flight the next morning. But in some cases, I won’t: Work schedule changed, illness, or stuck in traffic and needing to rebook to a later flight.
How can anyone seriously rely on my check-in status for anything? It’s arbitrary!
Again – your check-in status is important and I will explain why, and why it needs a cutoff time.
1) Cargo and load control
The cargo loading is prepared on estimated booking figures – dispatch will release to cargo an estimated available payload, and cargo will prepare and palletise whatever they have in stock for that specific route. Loading is finalised once the passenger number is known with certitude eg after check-in closes. If you don’t come, it doesn’t matter, the plane will be lighter by 84kgs plus bags. The delay between flight closure and door closure gives the dispatcher time to finetune the load that gets on board. If passengers only “check in” or are “accounted” as they pass the gate you will know the available load remaining only when everyone is on board – and from that point on you need 20 minutes at least to load up and button up. The plane only makes money when it flies, so there is tremendous pressure to cut ground time to a minimum (each company will negotiate a standard turnaround time in its SLA with the handlign company). Also you would waste a lot of time if say you need to unload a pallet or a container that has been loaded deep in the hold as you need to take everything out. Finally – suppose that due to one extra passenger you have not only to offload cargo, but you also have to juggle around whatever has already been loaded up to remain within trim limits. Once you’ve dealt with bad floor rollers and warped pallets / containers you know that is a time-wasting endeavor.
2)Overbooking management.
Suppose you sell 210 tickets for a 200 seater. Passengers foreheads’ or retinas ae scanned as they board. Once you have reached number 200, you will have 10 very angry passengers airside, whose bags might already have been loaded – on top of having a potential security problem airside, you need to offload all the luggage and search for the corresponding luggage pieces. A bulk-loaded plane you are looking at at least 30 minutes delay. A container loaded plane less, because you know which baggage is in which container (in theory). But if the container is at the deep end of the hold you’re still sh!t out of luck
3) Catering management
Suppose same case as above, but you have space and can move the 10 from coach to business. You don’t need to remove bags, but you need to order 10 extra meals, which can take anywhere between 10 minutes and one hour depending on where you are.
4) Fuel management (esp on smaller planes)
Suppose you end up overload at MTOW because you load fuel based on your planned trip and weather estimate, and then more passengers than you thought show up, and you only know when they board. Refueling is easy, defueling is more of a b!tch especially with passengers on board.
To a passenger I agree it seems very superfluous but there are a lot of things going on behind the scenes taht they do not get to see.
I understand everything you are saying with one exception: why can’t that be done based on the count of sold tickets instead of the count of check-ins? The number is approximately the same (everyone checks-in 24-48 hours in advance, so last minute no-show are included in both cases) and the costs to keep a check-in system running are probably higher than the occasional loss because of a passenger who bought a ticket but doesn’t check-in if he is not flying. Unless that number is huge (I don’t know the statistics).
Vladimir, it is pretty clear. To turn it around, how would you deal with Shorrick’s points specifically based on sold tickets?
@Vladimir – again, no shows aren’t a problem. Overselling is, and other than loco’s, it is still common. If the party (or company) is paying for your ticket, you will buy an unrestricted one precisely because meetings get delayed / rescheduled / etc and you don’t want to deal with buying another ticket again on the road. Some routes (Geneva – London eg) are regularly oversold.
Vladimir wrote:
…everyone checks-in 24-48 hours in advance…
I’ve never done that. Often we only know the evening before that we have to travel by airline the next day. And even when flying privately I would not check in early for fear of losing something when I need to change the flight.
The airlines have very good statistics. From the number of tickets sold they can surely tell, how many passengers are going to show up with an uncertainty of maybe two or three people out of 100. Shouldn’t that be sufficient for cargo and meals planning?
Shorrick_Mk2 wrote:
1) Cargo and load control
I can understand that point for long-range and holiday flights, that are usually quite packed and where every pound counts. But the typical weekday business connection? Take my last flight a couple of weeks ago, which is very similar to most such flights I have been on: EDDS-EDDV, early morning. Germanwings Airbus of some kind, less than 50% occupied by business daytrippers with mainly hand luggage. Half fuel should be sufficient for the return trip. You can load this thing with cargo not by mass, but by volume (unless your cargo is tungsten ore), it doesn’t matter the least, even if on an exceptional day 20 extra passengers should show up.
what_next wrote:
And even when flying privately I would not check in early for fear of losing something when I need to change the flight.
I don’t follow. What can you lose? The current check-in process is open the web site of the airline, enter ticket number and last name, click next, see that the correct flight was selected, click next, maybe choose a seat, click next, maybe check box that you are not carrying bombs, next, enter phone number for boarding pass, next, done. And now it’s automatic (for those speaking German):
Automatisches Check-in
Description: Swiss International Air Lines
Sehr geehrte Kundin, sehr geehrter Kunde
Sie haben sich für das automatische Check-in angemeldet.
Drucken Sie die beigefügte(n) Bordkarte(n) aus und halten Sie diese für die Zugangskontrollen am Flughafen bereit.
Unter > swiss.com/webcheckin können Sie den Sitzplatz ändern oder Ihre Vielfliegernummer hinzufügen.
Wir wünschen Ihnen einen guten Flug.
The current system also offers an opportunity to discreetly eyeball the passengers before they get too far.
…enter phone number for boarding pass,
This is the weak spot. I have one of those iPhones where you can’t tell whether the battery charge will last for one day or one hour. Taking into account my “luck” with these things you can be assured that the moment I want to show my boarding pass, the screen of this phone has just turned black 
And additionally, if I need to rebook the flight I will have to remember to undo my check-in first.
I simply see no advantage in checking in earlier than necessary. More choice of seats? What do I care. Airline flights are not ruined by the seat itself, but by the person sitting next to you. And the online booking system does not (yet) show that a seat is occupied by some 180kg heavy-smoker who hasn’t changed his shirt in a week…
@Shorrick_Mk2, you are very elaborately explaining why, for loading purposes, a good estimate of the number of people showing up is required and also why it needs a cut-off time. That’s all very well and clear.
What some of us are arguing is that the check-in status (based on today’s simplified/online check-in mechanisms) is not a much better indication of the number of people showing up than simply the number of tickets sold.
Of course, I don’t know the numbers/statistics and I can only argue based on my own “check-in behaviour”. Maybe the numbers are such that the checked-in passengers at the cut-off time are a much better indication because many people who don’t plan to use their ticket do not actually check-in (although they could and if they care for a non-middle seat, should). In that case, I’m happy to have learned the answer to the original question of this thread. 
