• Blog
  • Archives
  • Bio
  • Awards
  • Speaking
  • Book
  • Contact

A regularly pleasant airport experience

Published: Tuesday, 26 March 2013

One day, as if overnight, all the airport check-in people and desks disappeared.  In their place appeared computerised self-tagging stations.  Across the expanse where people would usually queue was a scattering of self- check-in stations.  Some were solely Club card activated, and all of the others allowed for a number of inputs.  Result?  Hardly anyone ever needs to wait to check themselves in and get through the process.

The difference is particularly noticeable when you don't travel with QANTAS and have to wait for 30 minutes to check your bag in, amongst a crowd of people that barely moves.

By giving the power to the passengers to check themselves in, attach their own bags tags and answer questions about their luggage, it has made the process of travelling easy.

I saw a talk given by the guy who designed this system a few months after it was implemented.  He said that travelling is painful, and he wanted to make it less painful.

What can you do to make something painful, less painful?

About Me

Marita ChengForbes named me a world's top 50 woman in tech & 30 Under 30. I founded Robogals and Aipoly and was Young Australian of the Year 2012. Currently working on robotics company Aubot. I'm the youngest Member of the Order of Australia (AM) and I give speeches around the world.

I tweet @maritacheng and I'm on Facebook.

Subscribe

Enter your email address to receive my latest blog posts: 

 

Random Articles

  • Iclif Leadership Energy Award

    Super stoked to have been awarded the Leadership Energy Summit Asia‘s (LESA) Iclif Leadership Energy Award’s (ILEA) Business Leader Award from the...

  • ABC "Can You Hear Me?"

    ABC made this short video, as part of a three-part series, about my Chinese culture and Brett Leary’s (founder of Virtual Songlines) Aboriginal...

  • 10 million

    My goal with my blog wasn't to reach 10 million views.  (And it hasn't.) My goal was to learn discipline:  making myself contribute to the world each...

  • A Tech Schools Update

    A building collapse warning system, a pancreatic cancer detection kit and a self-inflating shirt to stop young children drowning if they fall into a...

  • BigSpeak Top 10 Female Speaker

    BigSpeak named me one of top 10 female keynote speakers and one of their top 10 technology keynote speakers! I am utterly delighted! I only...

  • Success is in the doing

    Even if I know my chances of success are slim because I've been disorganised, have missed deadlines, have generally not followed my own rules for...

  • Over-exposure

    Telling people your plans too early doesn't make you less likely to achieve them.  I know when I tell people what I plan to do the response I get...

  • Playing with robots

    Playing with robots in the office with Kyle van Dordrecht.  We timed ourselves putting a robotics kit together...  then we modified the kit.  

  • No overnight success: Geoffrey Rush

    When I was touring schools with Geoffrey Rush and we were answering questions in front of hundreds of kids, lots of them said, "I really what to be...

  • Orlando

    I went to Orlando and gave three speeches in 4 days! I spoke to Baxter Healthcare virtually about failure - my failures, failing fast, failing...

Enter your email address to receive my latest blog posts: 

 

Scroll to Top