The Wall Street Journal: When the Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport was planning a new concourse, prime tenant Alaska Airlines insisted on a counter-intuitive design: "The one thing we don't want is a ticket counter," said Ed White, the airline's vice president of corporate real estate. So the 447,000-square-foot Concourse C, which opened in 2004, has only one small, traditional ticket counter, even though the carrier's 1.2 million Anchorage passengers checked in through that area last year. This unconventional approach — which uses self-service check-in machines and manned "bag drop" stations in a spacious hall that looks nothing like a typical airport — has doubled Alaska's capacity, halved its staffing needs and cut costs, while speeding travelers through the building in far less time.
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