United Airlines’ bag drop shortcut service is now available for passengers at Heathrow, which is the airline’s first international airport to offer the option.
The bag drop shortcut was unveiled in 2021 at Chicago, New York/Newark, Washington DC, Houston, Denver, Los Angeles and San Francisco airports. It was then introduced at a further 46 airports across the US.
According to customer surveys, the bag check process can be one of the more stressful and time-consuming parts of a passenger’s journey and United claims to be the first airline to streamline the process in this way.
Passengers can complete check-in on the United app or website and select the number of bags before arriving at the airport.
At the bag drop shortcut location, customers place their bag on the scale and tap their phone using the United app – or scan their boarding pass at stations using scanners.
The United team will check the customer’s ID and apply the bag tag.
Since the unveiling of bag drop shortcut in 2021, more than seven million bags have been tagged using this facility.
Following the recent introduction at Heathrow’s Terminal 2, more than 8,000 bags were tagged during the first two weeks.
Aaron Smythe, United’s director of airport operations at Heathrow, said: “Travelling can be a stressful experience, and bag drop shortcut helps remove that stress by providing our customers with a quick and efficient process to drop their bag and be on their way in just a few minutes.
“Our customers are already telling us how much this new facility has improved their airport experience and in response to customer demand, we have already expanded the number of bag drop shortcut desks at Heathrow.”