A couple of months ago I Blogged about my experience at the immigration in Changi Airport. Although there was an ‘Automated Clearance’ machine that allowed Singaporeans to go through customs by scanning their passport and thumbprints, many people just preferred to stand at the long queues where they went through the manual process of going through the Immigration officer.

Last week, I had a similar experience. When I went to Changi Airport Terminal 2, I noticed that there were at least 10 automated check-in machines for Singapore Airlines customers. The funny thing was that it was completely unused!!! Instead, there were long queues of people at the manual check-in counters.

Although I have never used it before and has no clue how to work it, I just thought I would give it a shot. Afterall, I was late and did not fancy joining the long queue to get checked-in. I must say the machine was amazing. It first asks you to insert your credit card and passport for identification. Then you able to select your own seats on the plane just like booking a movie seat online…COOOL!

In less than 2 minutes, the machine prints out my boarding pass. As for the check in baggae, you just drop it into a bag-drop and its in! In under 6 minutes I had checked in and had gone through immigration (automated machine of course).

So, why is nobody using these super cool technology? Are people afraid of doing something new? Must someone tell them to do it? What do you think? Where is the proactive spirit? Have you seen those machines yourself before? Have you used it? Why not?