I'll take it a step further. We need a total paradigm redesign of airports.
Imagine and airport designed to the point where you can literally drive up (or be dropped by an autonomous vehicle) 10 minutes before your flight, Throw your luggage onto a belt where a robot auto tags it based on your a facial recognition algorithm, and walk through an unobtrusive security point that's totally AI driven, and walk direct to your plane ready to go. As someone who travels a lot, I say forget shoes, this is the ultimate dream. The "arrive 2 hours before your flight" nonsense should be automated into oblivion on both ends. I think we just accept this paradigm of air travel now and our airports have become these bohemoths of capture to sell you food, beverage and overpriced trinkets with abhorent wait times for the actual flight logistics. Why cant I just be dropped off directly at my gate and bumble on in less then 5 minutes!
This reminds me of "portal travel." It's a half-joke, based on the vision of walking through a portal and showing up at your destination. Of course that's impossible, but...
Imagine a portal showing up outside your house, maybe on the back of a truck. It's got all the theater: the wavy green lights, smoke, the whole deal. You wave good bye to your family, walk in, and then you get chloroformed and pass out. Your body is loaded into a standardized life support container and driven to the airport. Then, you get revived 6 hours later at your hotel so you can take a shower.
Ok, so there are some details to work out but the point is that the typical air travel experience is so terrible it would be better to be unconscious for most of it. Portal travel!
This would really only apply for fights where I'm checking in luggage...international flights, for example.
I wouldn't mind a feature where I can drop off my luggage somewhere near my house the day before my flight and it gets tagged, bulked transferred and inspected at the airport.
This would allow me to straight to the gate and not need to check in large luggage or fumble with luggage while rushing for a flight.
This also forces me to pack early and now the night of the flight and be sleep deprived.
This already exists in some cities. Though I would love this to be available in all major cities myself. Here in Vienna for example we have the CAT (City Airport Train) [0]
Its an express train taking you from a city center railway station directly to the airport in about 15 minutes and also allows you to check in and drop off your luggage up to 24h before departure.
It's criticized by locals as too expensive compared to the S-Bahn serving the same connection (just slower/with more stops) but especially for visitors it of course gives you the huge benefit of not having to deal with any luggage on the last day when you already had to check out of your hotel.
I'm half-surprised we don't already have this. The airlines already use some sort of uber-like self-employed contractors to deliver lost luggage. They could offer the same service in the other direction.
What bugs me is how every airport is a completely custom design.
Somehow, no two airports are ever alike, and I have a hard time understanding how that happened. There’s no clones at all.
Like, I understand they each have their own geographical constraints, but so does a McDonalds or a Walmart, and somehow I can walk into any of those on the planet without feeling too confused.
Every airport is a multi-billion dollar project designed anew from the ground up. Even when it’s a greenfield build. Dunno why they can’t just pick an existing airport design and say “build that”.
Even roller-coasters will have their clones at different parks (authorized or unauthorized).
I mean you pretty much can do this depending on the airport. I generally show up half an hour before boarding. If it's a weird time or an airport that never has a security line it'll be 10. I don't check bags and use my phone ticket so other than an abnormally long security line there's no reason to show up more than half an hour early.
Imagine and airport designed to the point where you can literally drive up (or be dropped by an autonomous vehicle) 10 minutes before your flight, Throw your luggage onto a belt where a robot auto tags it based on your a facial recognition algorithm, and walk through an unobtrusive security point that's totally AI driven, and walk direct to your plane ready to go. As someone who travels a lot, I say forget shoes, this is the ultimate dream. The "arrive 2 hours before your flight" nonsense should be automated into oblivion on both ends. I think we just accept this paradigm of air travel now and our airports have become these bohemoths of capture to sell you food, beverage and overpriced trinkets with abhorent wait times for the actual flight logistics. Why cant I just be dropped off directly at my gate and bumble on in less then 5 minutes!