Check-in

This article is about the aviation, hotel or social networking term. For the use in information management, see Revision control. For the album by The Chalets, see Check In.

Check in Hall at Leeds Bradford International Airport

Kempinski Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten check-in

Check-in is the process of announcing your arrival at a hotel, airport, sea port or social network service.

Airlines and airports

Main article: Airport check-in

Check-in desks are found in the majority of commercial airports. Their main function is to take in luggage that passengers wish to, or are required to, place within the aircraft's cargo hold and issue the boarding passes. After the luggage is weighed and tagged, it is placed on a conveyor that usually feeds into the main baggage handling system. Each airline is assigned a check-in desk, which it manage eithers through ground staff or a handling company. Some airports have curbside check-in, where passengers give their bags to an airline representative right before entering the terminal and then proceed directly to security.

Automated check-in

There is an increasing trend towards more automated check-in processes, with many passengers now able to either check-in online before arriving at the airport (often several days before their flight) or use an airline's self-service check-in kiosks at the airport, avoiding queues for the main, staffed, check-in desks. However some airlines will require passengers proceed to a dedicated desk (which is located near the main desks) to have their travel documents verified before moving on.

Check-in scale

The airline check-in's main function is to accept luggage that is to go in the aircraft's cargo hold. The acceptance of luggage is of course restricted, and one of these restrictions is the weight. Therefore the weighing scales are mostly integrated in baggage handling or labelling conveyors, which ensures an optimum flow of passengers at check-in counters. The weighing scale bases use high performance strain gauge load cells for weight measurement and are protected against accidental overload.

The check in scale displays can be mounted on top of the counter or integrated into the check in counter. Most of the check in scale displays are equipped with a totalisation function. Totalisation enables multiple baggage weights to be accumulated, per passenger or per group of passengers.

Hotels

At hotels, check-in is normally required in order to obtain a room key and provide a credit card guarantee to cover potential costs such as room service for the duration of the stay.

The hotel's check-in time indicates the time from which the hotel starts charging for the day. If anybody wants to occupy the hotel room before the hotel's check-in time, the hotel charges for one additional day and considers it as previous day stay (as compared to occupying the hotel room after the check-in time). Most hotels, however, can accommodate a little buffer time request (typically 30-60 min) by the customers, without any additional charge, if one wishes to take the room before the check-in time. For the most cost-effective usage of hotel room occupancy, the customer should try to reach at about hotel's check-in time and leave or hand over the hotel room at about the hotel's check-out time, but it may not be always practical because the customer's arrival and departure time of flights may not align with the hotel check-in and check-out time and for other reasons.

Social check-in

Many social networking services, such as Foursquare, Google Latitude, Facebook, Gowalla, and Brightkite allow users to "check in" to a physical place and share their location with their friends.^[1]

Users can check in to a specific location by text messaging or by using a mobile application on a smartphone--the application will use the phone’s GPS to find the current location.

Many applications have a “Places” button or tab where a user can see a list of nearby places into which the user can check in. If a location is not on the nearby places list, the user can add the location directly from the phone. Once a user has checked in, they have the option of sharing their location with friends in services such as Twitter or Facebook.

References

1. ^ Riva Richmond (September 10, 2010). "Three Best Ways to Use Location-Based Social Media". The Wall Street Journal. Dow Jones & Company, Inc.. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703597204575483832278936028.html?mod=googlenews_wsj. Retrieved September 30, 2010.