Feasibiility for in town/remote check in for Australian Domestic and International services

[LionKing]

In many countries in the world, such as Japan, Singapore and Hong Kong, in town or remote check in is available at an extra charge where passengers can check in their baggage through a courier in town, weigh and tag, have their boarding pass printed and then send to the airport ready for their service later in the day.

In Australia, usual hotel check out time is 10 or 11am, which means unless you have an early afternoon service, you usually will have to bring your baggage to work or to your conference, then leave early enough for your 5pm or 6pm service to your home town.

With technologies such as Uber Courier, I was wondering whether it is feasible for Qantas and Virgin Australia (as well as other airlines) to launch in town check in where some of the hotels in town can offer an early check in counter for evening flights with a midday cut off, which would have allowed business travellers to check out their rooms and check in their bags for their afternoon flight at the same time, and they could have just arrived at gate 30 minutes before which could have saved unnecessary waiting times at the lounge or at the terminal?

This service can also be a paid service for those who have an early afternoon international O&D or simple stopover/transfers to allow anyone to check in their bags in dedicated points and have a courirer picked up and deliver to their flights, which also means say passengers travelling on SQ242 could leave work on time at 5pm, catch Uber and arrive at airport 15 minutes later and can still make their service leaving at 6pm?

 

[esseeeayeenn]

As far as I am aware this service is not offered in Singapore.
It is offered in a few cities and I have used it in both Hong Kong and Kuala Lumpur.
In each of those cities it is offered in conjunction with an express airport train service.
This is important because there are some basic checks to be done, which would prevent such a service being offered from a large number of hotels, for example.

There are no such express train services operating to any Australian airport.
Sydney, Brisbane and Perth airports are each serviced by regular suburban commuter trains, which also service many other stations.
Melbourne, Adelaide, Darwin, Canberra and Hobart have no airport rail connection at all.

Of the airport rail services which exist, none of them has the sort of dedicated station facilities which exist in both Hong Kong and Kuala Lumpur.
Even there, the service is only available at select stations with such facilities.
In HK this means Central and Kowloon. In KL it means KL Sentral only.
Further, it is only available for certain airlines.

In short, I think the main obstacle to implementing this in Australia would be the lack of appropriate supporting rail infrastructure.

 

[SYD]

I have a vague recollection that there used to be in town bag drop in Sydney for certain airlines (might have been QF/BA) but that was “enhanced” after 9/11.

There used to be bag drop at London Paddington in conjunction with HEX. Again, “enhanced”.

 

[markis10]

As far as I am aware this service is not offered in Singapore.

It was offered in the past and has recently come back in limited form supporting guests at three hotels flying SQ, and they pay $29 per bag for the privilege

 

[dajop]

As far as I am aware this service is not offered in Singapore.
It is offered in a few cities and I have used it in both Hong Kong and Kuala Lumpur.
In each of those cities it is offered in conjunction with an express airport train service.

There are two types of such services. The one where you turn up to a normal checkin desk at a train station instead of an airport, which is what you mention. These are usually free (in conjunction with train ticket)

Then paid services that will pick up your baggage from the hotel and check it in for you, such as airportr.com

Swiss rail also have a paid service to transfer your luggage to ZRH and then you can collect at their luggage counter at the airport station before proceeding to checkin yourself.

So there are different options.

 

[Cloud9]

Apologies for sounding overly cynical, but I just honestly wouldn't have any faith in my bags being properly routed (if they even did make it all the way to the airport to begin with) with such a service here in Australia.

It's proving difficult enough for our services to just co-ordinate two planes taxiing at SYD.

Infrastructure, competence, and sheer cost probably make it prohibitive alone.

 

[TheCollecter]

Hi HK, which I've only been to in 2023, I'm told Cathay had just recently restarted bag drop at the city station for the airport train after a break for Covid. I didn't use it, but a local colleague said she had found it to be magic, as she could bring her bag on the morning commute, drop it, walk the 5 mins to work with just her wheelie carry on, and then get the train to the airport at some point that day.

As nice as this may seem, in Melbourne we have bigger fish to fry... like an actual train to the airport... how our bags get there is light-years away from our consideration