The first airline to introduce check-in kiosks at the airport will be the first to get rid of them. Alaska Airlines is removing the kiosks this year from its main airports, including Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Anchorage. It’s part of a plan announced Tuesday to spend $2.5b over three years on to upgrade passenger technology in airport lobbies. The plan is to transition to a fully self-service experience for check-in and baggage drop-off, with the goal of getting passengers through a lobby and to the security line in five minutes or less, the company said. “As we thought about how to provide the most caring experience for our guests, it was clear the lobby was a pain point,” said Charu Jain, Alaska Airlines senior vice president of innovation and merchandising, in a statement. “We realized the majority of our guests were doing most of the kiosk actions on their own phones and we could reduce the congestion in our airports. Alaska was the first airline to introduce kiosks more than 20 years ago, and we’ll be the first airline to remove them.” The check-in kiosks will be replaced with iPad stations — essentially an iPad and credit card reader on a stand — where the passenger can pay for a checked bag and print the paper bag tag. The airline is continuing to encourage passengers to check in online and obtain a boarding pass before arriving at the airport. Most of Alaska’s airports will transition to the new bag tag stations by the end of 2023.<br/>
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Australia's competition regulator blocked Qantas Airways's A$611m ($409m) buyout of charter flight operator Alliance Aviation Services, curtailing the airline's ability to tap demand from the resources sector. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) said the pair competed in the so-called fly-in, fly-out domestic markets of mining-rich Queensland and Western Australia states, and the deal may push prices up and service quality down. The ruling is one of the first major deal rejections by the ACCC under new chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb, and presents a hurdle for Qantas to dominate a market connected to the engine of the Australian economy. It also stops the target firm's shareholders from exiting at a premium following a period of upheaval. "Regardless of today's decision, Qantas and Alliance have a strong commercial relationship, and we expect this to remain unchanged," said Ord Minnett analyst Phillip Chippindale in a research note. Chippindale said the decision appeared to contradict the ACCC assertions that top miners enjoyed strong bargaining power, and that he expected the companies to appeal in Federal Court. Qantas, which bought 20% of Alliance without regulator objection in 2019, said it was seeking a meeting with the ACCC. It called the ruling "at odds with the increasingly competitive nature of the segment".<br/>