Starting June 3, you’ll have to check in earlier if you want to fly United Airlines. In an internal memo first shared by Live and Let’s Fly, the airline stays that customers without bags will have to check in at least 45 minutes prior to their flight. The current rule is 30 minutes. If you don’t make it in time, you’ll lose your seat.
Beginning June 3, customers traveling without checked bags must check in at least 45 minutes prior to departure for domestic flights.
- Previously, this cut-off time was 30 minutes.
- There is no change for customers with checked bags; they still need to check in 45 minutes before departure.
Why are we making this change? We are consolidating the four existing domestic cut-off times into a single, consistent time—45 minutes before departure for all domestic passengers. This adjustment also provides our airport Customer Service representatives additional time to assist customers prior to departure.
Last summer United updated its contract of carriage with passengers to allow them to make this change. In fact, they said they could impose a 60 minute check-in time. However they said that they weren’t making any actual changes at the time.
Since customers had already been buying travel nearly a year out, for whom the old rules in the contract of carriage applied, they needed to wait until June 2025 flights to put their desired changes into effect.
Live and Let’s Fly sees this as no big deal. I do not agree.
I’m agnostic about this change and tend to think it will negatively impact very few people…in a world in which it is so easy to check-in online or on the United app
Sometimes online check-in fails for certain itineraries! I’ve been unable to check in, gotten stuck in traffic and had problems at the kiosk. Every minute mattered. United is working to be a premium carrier, and cater to customers with a high opportunity cost of their time – people who show up at the airport later because they’re busy. They’re working.
This is a move that certainly works for the convenience of the airline, but is customer-unfriendly. It lets them see people who aren’t showing up earlier, and clear standby passengers earlier – making it easier to staff gates lightly. But clearing standby earlier also means seats are already gone for top elites running up to the gate to catch an earlier flight. I don’t like this change and don’t see the customer upside.
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