Broadly speaking, yes airlines want to move away from checkin desks and get pax to do it all online - I get that there is a high cost to having staff on site to do this. The question in my original post was about where there are specific scenarios where an airline *has* to provide a checkin desk service because most-but-not-all the pax need to put luggage in the hold (as happens when people are going to the Med for a week on the beach in peak summer) and there is no competitor airline providing flights on the same route, could an airline decide to charge an online-checkin-convenience fee as a money-making opportunity for people who are not purchasing ancillary services from the company that owns the airline (e.g. not paying extra fees for hold luggage or accommodation) so as to make the cheapskates like me who usually just want a minimal bum-on-seat ticket so as to boost the airline's profit margin ?