Suitcases won’t be extra baggage much longer

Friday, March 24, 2006 | 7:16 a.m.

As a tourist, you've probably faced this frustration before: The hotel check-out time is noon and your flight doesn't leave until 6 p.m. How do you a kill a few hours while you're schlepping suitcases around?

Many visitors to Las Vegas have flights that leave after the sun goes down. For the tourist who wants to attend a few more hours on the convention floor, play a few more spins on a slot machine or visit one more buffet, help is on the way.

McCarran International Airport in a few weeks will introduce SpeedCheck Plus, a remote baggage check-in program that will allow hotel guests to check their suitcases in at the hotel.

"We're ready to roll on it," Clark County Aviation Director Randy Walker said. "We've got the hardware and a hotel partner to get it started. All we need now are some airlines to work out a few details."

And that isn't expected to be an obstacle, since Southwest Airlines, the busiest operator at McCarran, is on board with the program and other airlines are right behind.

The first resort to have SpeedCheck Plus installed will be the Venetian and hotel representatives are ready to get started.

"We jumped at the opportunity when they (McCarran officials) approached us," said Kirsten Dimond, vice president of hotel operations. "We expect people will be able to spend more time on property with this in place."

When passengers check in at a SpeedCheck Plus location, they'll get their suitcases tagged just as they would at a ticket counter at the airport. Instead of the suitcase disappearing on an airport conveyor belt, it will be moved to a secure location.

Walker said from there, a third-party company - called Bags 2 Go - will pick up suitcases and take them to McCarran's new remote security center, where they'll be screened, then delivered to the proper airline to be placed on the right flight.

"From there, the guest will be free of his bags and the passenger can go straight through security and to the gate," Walker said.

The service will have a fee, probably around $10 a bag.

Walker said the check-in center will look like those at the airport ticket counter. Each unit costs $100,000, but Walker says savings in other areas will make it worthwhile.

"We tell passengers to get to the airport an hour-and-a-half to two hours before flight time because of the long lines," Walker said. "But this should actually shorten some of the lines because passengers who use it won't have to wait in the ticket counter line at all."

He also expects the system will take some stress off taxi lines, since unloading baggage from car trunks is a time killer.

Dimond said the first SpeedCheck unit will be installed at the resort's Congress Convention Center to serve business travelers wanting to spend a little extra time at conferences and meetings. She said if the project is a hit, other locations are planned on the property.

Walker said other hotels are considering the installations and, as more airlines sign on to the program, it should become more popular. The Venetian plans to market the program as an amenity, and McCarran will publicize it more once the system is on line.

Walker said the goal is to eventually get 10 percent of the airport's bags through the system. That may be easy to achieve, since the program is modeled after SpeedCheck, the airport's kiosk-based boarding pass distribution system.

Walker said he was optimistic that 10 percent of the airport's passengers would use that system. Today, the system, introduced in 2003, issues 100,000 boarding passes a week, about 25 percent of the total.