Thank you (the last couple of posters) for some good (and pleasant) responses. Can I ask, because I haven't experienced it yet, how baggage check without an agent being present works (GH says they have them in Germany). How do they ensure that tags are affixed properly, how do they check that bags are securely closed, how do they deal with overweight/oversize bags, how do they ask 'did you pack this bag yourself?. When I was thinking through what I wanted to say in this thread it seemed to me that, yes, you can do everything up to printing the boarding card before you got to the airport but what about checked baggage?