Air France announced to give the option to auto-check-in bookings made on airfrance.com. They will send you an email, MMS, SMS with your boarding pass automatically about 30 hours before the flight.  Why is this the beginning of the end for this (less and less useful) step in the passenger process?

The historical purpose of check-in was to perform a check of the ticket coupons a passenger brought with him/her, validate the passenger's identity, weigh the hold luggage (and in some cases the passenger too), check the size of any cabin baggage, and handover a boarding card with useful information like gate, boarding time and seat number. It was also the first contact of the passenger with an airline employee (or someone acting in name thereof).

Nowadays most of these tasks are either not neccessary anymore or have been replaced by new ways of working:

• ticket coupons check - since e-ticketing, ticket coupons are worthless. The "truth" of your reservation is in the computer of the airline. Wether you present a printed copy of the e-ticket, or just your passport / travel document does not matter
• validate passengers identity - this validation has multiple touchpoints to prevent terrorism and human trafficking. Your identity is/should be checked upon dropping off your luggage (record who drops off luggage, the luggage will almost never fly without the same passenger on board), going through customs (country departure / entry check), boarding gate (does boarding card belong to this passenger). The identity check just for the check-in process has become obsolete
• weigh and drop off the hold luggage - now this is something we still need to do. However, a manned desk in the departure hall may not be the most optimum place for doing this. Automating / optimizing this process (e.g. by using installations like BagDrop) is next in the optimization of the passenger process.
• check the size of cabin baggage - airlines have become quite strict in what to allow due to the limitations of the cabin. If you put more passengers in the cabin, there is less room for cabin bags. The check can actually be performed at boarding time, as trying to sneak in more cabin bags than allowed (and without paying) has become a sport under travellers.
• handover of a boarding card - this has become completely obsolete, but for it being "a reminder on paper" for people who can't remember their seat numer. Information like boarding time and gate may be outdated once you are through the security step, making the information on the boarding pass a threat for a timely departure than anything else.  Mobile boarding cards (which are still static at the moment) are being adopted as the penetration of smart phones grows.

As the check-in process is merely a change of status in the backend of the airline system, check-in has become obsolete. And when luggage drop-off is becoming organised differently we will see a different passenger flow and use of the (often) cramped space in the terminals.

Link to the original article on R&D Hub!