Starting today: Austrian Airlines travellers can drop off baggage or check in themselves

As of December 6, 2016, passengers at Vienna Airport can drop off their luggage themselves at one of the 16 new self-service baggage drop-off counters. Vienna Airport and Austrian Airlines have installed the self-service baggage machines in Terminal 3 following a successful testing phase. The joint objective of this innovation is to ensure quicker check-in before the flight as well as to expand the service offering.

“We set up two machines for testing purposes beforehand. They were surprisingly well received by passengers“, says Austrian Airlines CEO Kay Kratky. “In the future, our customers will have the choice of either dropping off their baggage at the counter as usual or checking in their luggage themselves and thus eventually saving some time.”

Julian Jäger, Member of the Management Board of Flughafen Wien AG, adds: “With the installation and putting into service of the self-service bag drop-off counter, we have updated our terminal infrastructure technically and thus offer airlines and passengers an even better infrastructure quality. The airport invested about € 1.2 million in the joint project with the Austrian Airlines, the country’s flag carrier.”

Check in and drop-off baggage oneself
Only a valid boarding pass is necessary to check-in baggage oneself. This boarding pass is either electronically provided in the case of Web check-in or can be printed in Terminal 3 at one of the check-in machines. 49 of these devices are available at Vienna Airport. In the future, the passenger will also have to indicate the number of pieces of luggage and then print the bag tags. In a second step, she or he puts the baggage on the conveyor belt, and reads the bar code on the baggage tag by using a handheld reader. The baggage tag must be visibly put on the luggage baggage.

Starting today: Printing of baggage tags at home
In addition to the expand check-in offering at Vienna Airport, passengers will be able to print their baggage tags themselves at home starting December 6, 2016. Initially this will be possible for flights departing from Vienna for Amsterdam, Zurich and Miami. This is how the system works: enter the number of bags in the Web check-in, and the bag tag will be made available along with the boarding pass. Simply attach the baggage tag, drop off the baggage at the self-service baggage drop-off and save time at the airport.