How to make the most of the new era of airline check-in software

Check-in has long been treated as a routine step in the airline experience, but it’s also a source of friction for both passengers and airline teams. Airlines often struggle with outdated, disconnected systems that are costly to maintain and can't quickly adapt to unique servicing needs. This leads to poor customer experiences, high support volumes and missed retailing opportunities. Today’s travellers expect more, such as personalisation, speed and omnichannel control, making it a prime opportunity to reimagine check-in as a strategic moment to boost satisfaction, efficiency and revenue.

At Branchspace, we developed Triplake Shop & Fly Check-in to propel this shift and make check-in smarter, seamless and more commercially effective.

Here are five initial ways airlines can optimise check-in, backed by smart strategies and real-world Triplake inspiration.
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1. From manual to effortless: Digitise and streamline check-in^‍

Travellers are accustomed to purchasing and managing everything online, yet check-in can feel manual and restricted to the airport. In fact, the 2023 SITA Passenger IT Insights Report states that over one-third of travellers still check-in at the airport, either with airline staff or at a kiosk. By digitising the process with online check-in, digital document upload and dynamic boarding passes, airlines reduce airport queues and staffing needs while improving traveller experiences.

According to the 2023 IATA Global Passenger Survey, 87% of travellers are willing to share immigration info digitally to save time at the airport, highlighting a clear shift in passenger expectations. Airlines also gain flexibility, from setting check-in opening times to automating the flow based on destinations or traveller profiles. Triplake Shop & Fly Check-in supports this full transformation towards a frictionless, value-generating part of the journey, long before passengers reach the airport.

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2. Harness check-in to re-target and boost revenue opportunities

Check-in is a valuable moment to re-engage travellers and drive incremental sales. Airlines can surface contextual, personalised offers such as seat upgrades, special baggage, fast track, or lounge access. This allows them to better meet evolving traveller needs while unlocking new opportunities for ancillary revenue.

AI-driven recommendations and day-of-travel deals increase conversion, especially when timed to real-world, behavioural triggers like trip type or purchasing habits. Check-in can also serve as a gateway to the wider travel experience. Integrating with third-party services, like hotels, transfers and destination experiences, positions the airline as more than a carrier. Check-in becomes a digital concierge for strategic revenue boosts and customer retention.

3. Design for intuitive flexibility, not just speed

Speed matters, but flexibility is now a baseline expectation. Travellers want the ability to undo check-in, modify details or add co-travellers in a user-friendly manner across devices without restarting.

Support for complex use cases like pet travel, special assistance or unaccompanied minors should be built-in, not bolted on. A unified interface with cross-device continuity ensures passengers can manage their journey confidently.

Branchspace’s Triplake Shop & Fly Check-in enables this level of intuitive self-service, reducing calls and stress, increasing satisfaction and building long-term loyalty.

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4. Keep travellers informed and reassured every step of the way

Timely updates create confidence. Notifications on gate changes, flight delays or baggage status act as reassurance tools that reduce anxiety and improve NPS. From pre-departure to post-arrival, communication should be consistent and proactive.

Picture a traveller navigating a busy airport and receiving a ping that their gate has changed, followed by a map to guide them there. Or an alert after landing that their bag is delayed, with a direct link to tracking and resolution. These moments don’t just solve problems, they build trust.

Alerts also need to be customisable, so travellers receive updates how and when they prefer. When designed with empathy and intelligence, notifications become a personal concierge guiding travellers throughout the journey.

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5. Harmonise check-in within the broader technical ecosystem

A fragmented check-in process creates inconsistent experiences and operational inefficiencies. Aligning check-in with the airline's wider tech stack, like DCS, PSS, CRM, payments and loyalty systems, enables real-time communication and context-aware servicing.

Modular deployment and API-based integrations allow check-in to function as part of a scalable, future-ready platform. Branchspace’s Triplake Shop & Fly Check-in supports an agile, decoupled architecture, making it easier to innovate over time. In a harmonised ecosystem, check-in becomes an orchestrated, intelligent part of the entire airline operation.

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Shop & Fly Check-in as a building block in Triplake's end-to-end value proposition

Triplake Shop & Fly Check-in is built to solve real airline challenges, offering a flexible, scalable solution that integrates with any existing system, like PSS and OOM, to reduce time, vendor reliance and costs.

As part of the broader Branchspace Triplake ecosystem, Shop & Fly Check-in connects effortlessly with other modules, from On the Go, Digital Web, to Ancillaries. This alignment enables airlines to adopt a truly modular, future-ready architecture at their own pace.

Ultimately, Triplake Shop & Fly Check-in makes these five tips a reality. It’s a solution built for today’s travellers and tomorrow’s airline operations…personalised, intelligent and growth-oriented.

Looking to modernise your airline check-in software?

Explore how you can power your airline’s digital retailing with Triplake Shop & Fly Check-in or schedule a demo today.

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The average airline web portals is not broken. It loads, it sells tickets. It technically does what it's supposed to do.

And yet, the experience feels tiring.

You notice it when you try to do something simple. Change a seat. Find your gate. Understand what happens if a flight is delayed. Suddenly you are scanning long pages, decoding airline terminology, clicking back and forth just to stay oriented.

The problem is not with the features, It is effort effort required in getting from A to B.

Airline portals still expect travellers to think like systems. To understand menus, categories, fare families, ancillaries, rules. But travellers arrive with something much simpler. Intent.

They want to get something done and get on with their journey.

This article posits that airline web portals should stop behaving like navigation systems and start acting as intent-aware decision environments. When UX is designed to reduce effort, adapt to context, and quietly support travellers at each stage of the journey, portals become calmer to use, easier to trust, and far more effective for airlines.

The basics still matter more than airlines think

Before talking about AI or personalisation, it is worth being honest about the fundamentals.

You can see that accessibility standards aren’t yet being applied and portals aren’t optimised for mobile, which results in performance drops. Navigation feels heavier than it needs to be. Search often works, but only if you already know what to ask and how the airline expects you to ask it.

These are not exciting topics, but they shape everything that comes after. If a portal is slow, confusing, or inaccessible, no amount of intelligence layered on top will fix the experience.

At Branchspace, we see this repeatedly. Airlines want to move faster, personalise more, experiment. But the UX foundation is not always ready to support that ambition.

Where portals lose traveller trust

The biggest UX issues are rarely dramatic, they are subtle and cumulative:

• A vague error message that offers no next step

• A long paragraph that hides the one thing the traveller needs to know

• Three different words for the same concept depending on where you are in the journey

• A mobile page that technically works but feels endless

In isolation these are small instances, but they compound to create friction for a user. And friction erodes confidence.

Travellers begin to hesitate, scan more carefully, and spend extra effort just trying to stay oriented. They stop trusting that the portal will help them when things go wrong. Good UX goes beyond delight, it is about reassurance.

Decision-making is the real job of UX

Every airline portal is a decision-making environment:

1. Choose a flight

2. Choose a fare

3. Choose a seat

4. Decide whether to rebook or wait

The role of UX is not to present all options equally. It is to reduce the mental work required to choose well.

That is where simple principles matter more than flashy ideas: clear visual hierarchy, familiar patterns, plain language, and progressive disclosure.

When these are done properly, travellers stop analysing the interface and start moving confidently through it.

This is also where intent-led thinking becomes powerful. When portals are designed around tasks rather than pages, complexity begins to fall away naturally.

What changes when you design for intent

When you stop designing for navigation and start designing for intent, the portal behaves differently:

• Shift the focus to intent and the portal begins to respond in new ways

• Search leads the experience rather than sitting in the background

• Logged-in travellers with an upcoming trip see what they can do next, instead of being asked to explore

This is the direction we have been taking with platforms like Triplake by allowing the portal to respond to context, trip stage, loyalty status and behaviour.

Where AI actually helps and where it should stay quiet

AI has a role in airline UX, but it works best when it stays in the background rather than taking centre stage. The strongest AI-driven experiences are often the ones you barely notice, because the interface feels simpler and the path forward feels clearer.

That might mean routing a traveller straight to the right outcome based on a natural language query, or surfacing the most relevant rebooking option when a disruption occurs. In other moments, it is about removing repetition altogether, using known preferences to spare travellers from making the same choices again and again.

At its best, AI offers clarity, supports decisions without trying to make them on the traveller’s behalf. People still want to feel in control of their journey, they just do not want to work so hard to get there.

The portal is becoming a living interface

The most interesting shift we are seeing has very little to do with technology and everything to do with behaviour. Airline portals are gradually moving away from being static websites and towards adaptive interfaces that respond to where a traveller is in their journey.

Before the trip, the portal helps you prepare. On the day of travel, it shifts into a supportive role, surfacing the information that matters most in the moment. Afterwards, it follows up, closing the loop rather than simply ending the experience.

Making this work demands modular design systems, flexible platforms, and teams that think beyond individual pages and flows. It is not an easy change, but it is both achievable and increasingly necessary.

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