CAPS outlines growth plans at conference

Wednesday, June 27, 2001 | 10:52 a.m.

A Las Vegas-area company that drew the blueprint for remote airport check-in procedures will expand to Los Angeles and San Francisco later this year and will enter 11 more markets after 2001.

Certified Airline Passenger Services LLC, which served nearly 35,000 customers in the company's second quarter this year, outlined its domestic expansion plan at the Airport Operations and Infrastructure Summit.

The two-day conference in Las Vegas last week addressed alleviating congestion and increasing capacity by streamlining airline and airport management with emerging technology. About 50 aviation experts from around the world attended the conference and heard representatives of the three-year-old Henderson company explain how they've pioneered remote check-ins at Las Vegas' McCarran International Airport.

CAPS, which has developed a passenger and baggage check-in system from 13 locations, most of them hotel-casino lobbies, also plans additional growth in the Las Vegas market.

Jim Gentleman, vice president of marketing for CAPS, said the company plans to be in 25 locations and will add six airline partners by the end of 2001. The company already has partnerships with 11 airlines -- American Trans Air, America West, Canada 3000, Champion Air, Continental, Delta, Omni Air, Southwest, Sun Country, United and Virgin Atlantic.

Gentleman said talks are under way with Alaska, American, National, Northwest, TWA and US Airways. TWA is in the process of being acquired by American and US Airways is a takeover target of United. Las Vegas-based National Airlines already operates a limited remote check-in system from the Harrah's and Rio hotel-casinos.

Once CAPS has expanded into San Francisco and Los Angeles in the late fall, the company is setting its sights on Chicago late this year or early next year. After that, the company is targeting operations in Baltimore; Boston; Dallas; Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; Honolulu; Miami; New York-Newark, N.J.; Orlando, Fla.; Phoenix; and Seattle.

CAPS also is exploring serving customers arriving in Las Vegas. Gentleman and Chief Operating Officer Mark Brennan said the company's system is designed to handle passengers leaving Las Vegas, but setting up a comparable system for arriving passengers is a bigger technological challenge, since bags to be handled by the company would have to be specially tagged at the passenger's originating airport.

"There's major interest in what CAPS is doing around the world," said conference coordinator Gregory Hodkinson, an aviation consultant with Arup, a New York engineering firm. "They're most interested in how they were certified by the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration). We take our hats off to the company for that."

The reason the company is held in such high esteem is that it remains the only company to have been certified for remote check-ins by the FAA.

CAPS grew out of a business known as American Baggage Co., which began operations in 1972 as a group travel service company on charter and scheduled flights. That company has handled more than 15 million bags since it began operations.

Once the FAA approvals were granted and CAPS began collecting bags, issuing boarding passes and offering seat assignments at $6 per passenger, the federal government began realizing how remote passenger check-in could help alleviate airport congestion. A $2 million federal grant was offered to CAPS and some of its partners to explore other technological advancements that could speed remote check-in to other airports.

CAPS is using the grant to work with Symbol Technologies Inc., Holtsville, N.Y., to develop airline check-in for multiple carriers with a personal data assistant -- an industry first. Company officials are hoping the hand-held devices will enable speedier check-ins away from the airport, eliminating long airport lines that passengers find to be the most aggravating aspects of traveling.