Do airline self-service check-in kiosks meet the needs of passengers?

This study aims to (i) explore the importance and performance of services provided by kiosks and (ii) identify managerial strategies to increase kiosk attractiveness in order to be a viable option for passengers. The service attributes influencing service quality were first determined via the critical incident technique (CIT), following which a questionnaire was designed for data collection. Relative to an identified distribution (Ridit) values were applied to conduct the importance–performance analysis (IPA) rather than the mean values of raw ordinal scores. Our results indicate that potential kiosk users expect their check-in environment to be highly controlled. Airlines may mitigate frequent flyers’ resistance to kiosks by providing additional benefits or seat-selecting privileges. Finally, kiosks are expected to be light and compact, and should be installed near the luggage conveyor belt to provide satisfactory service for both airlines and passengers in the limited space available.