Tyler Cowen flags a National Bureau of Economic Research paper that’s skeptical of the ability of automation to replace human labor; limitations on technological advances thus limiting future growth.

This lack of multitasking ability is dismissed by the robot enthusiasts – just wait, it is coming. Soon our robots will not only be able to win at Jeopardy but also will be able to check in your bags at the sky cap station at the airport, thus displacing the skycaps. But the physical tasks that humans can do are unlikely to be replaced in the next several decades by robots. Surely multiple-function robots will be developed, but it will be a long and gradual process before robots outside of the manufacturing and wholesaling sectors become a significant factor in replacing human jobs in the service or construction sectors.

Except, as I shared with Tyler, and while baggage handlers still toss bags onto planes, there’s been automation of the process progressing for 20 years. Airports have installed automated baggage handling systems over the past couple of decades. And the check-in process with luggage has gotten increasingly automated, with big breakthroughs on the horizon.

American has tested self-tagging of bags in Boston, Austin, and Orlando.

Qantas has permanent bag tags that work with RFID readers at the airport, you check in online and drop your bag at the bag drop and leave. This works for their Australian domestic flights. (I do have a “Q Bag Tag”)

British Airways is trialing an end to paper tags, they began with Microsoft employees in Seattle this past fall.

Brussels Airlines on intra-European flights departing Brussels has trieled self baggage dropoff.

BWI airport is working on their baggage systems to accommodate self-checking of bags

I also don’t think the author of the paper, making claims about the limits of automation at airports, knows what a skycap is (airline agents working the check-in counter are not ‘skycaps’, those are the workers outside the terminal curbside).

The last time I used one was to check-in the day that US Airways and American West combined reservation systems, since US Airways agents couldn’t figure out their computers, the US Airways website and kiosks were down, and a $5 tip got me a boarding pass when the airline couldn’t do it. But Skycaps aren’t who most people check their bags with, airlines now charge for checked bags and in some cases forbid tipping of skycaps, the economics of the skycap have changed tremendously so it’s no longer the lucrative position for well-connected workers that it once was.

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