Thanks for both replies. HH partially answered a question I meant to ask in the original post but forgot. Are there any airport/airlines combo where the majority of the passengers checking in at the airport is done in a self-service manner? How is customer acceptance and competence in this process?
I guess I can see this being successful in short-haul flights aimed at the business community. If there are no hold luggage involved, off-site or kiosk self-service check-in actually makes sense as it reduces queuing. As I said before, I have done that myself on a previous flight when I only had hand luggage.
But can this process actually work efficiently on long-haul flights with passengers that do not travel frequently? Or is cost savings the airline's only concern, regardless of whether these kiosks actually reduce queuing times (like supermarket self-service checkouts where the queuing time is just as long as before)?
Also, HH, in the example you gave where the bags are just shoved onto the belt with no staff checking, how does the airline prevent (or more accurately, charge for) overweight bags?