LAS VEGAS - IN THIS most miserable year ever for airline passengers - a year of record flight delays and baggage mishandling - hope is on the horizon.

One solution: an airport where the only people are the passengers.

Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport is floating a vision of travellers lined up at self-service kiosks where they could check in, tag their bags, drop them into luggage chutes, select their seats and print out boarding passes.

In about five years, there will be hardly any airline counters manned by humans, as new machines will help keep lines shorter and process passengers faster, Schiphol officials predict.

The self-service plan was the big buzz among 300 airline and airport officials who gathered for a two-day conference, which ended on Friday, to explore faster and easier ways to get passengers through airports.

Titled Check-in 2007, the conference comes at a time when flight delays and mishandled baggage are at their worst in the United States, since the federal government began tracking the issues in 1995. Some aviation analysts see little relief ahead as more planes and passengers take to the sky.

'People don't think flying is a whole lot of fun anymore,' said JetBlue Airways Corp's chief information officer Charles Mees.

At the conference, about 20 companies showcased new devices to keep check-in lines moving.

The European-based firm SITA hawked a kiosk that could enable passengers to check in and print boarding passes for all major airlines. Currently, self-service kiosks usually serve only one or two airlines.

Scotland's Mobiqa Ltd developed software that sends an image of a barcode to cellphones. Passengers then simply pass the cellphone under an image-reading device to check in or board a plane.

Many of the ideas discussed at the conference, such as a common check-in area for all airlines, seemed remote. But the Schiphol plan appears close to lift-off, airport officials said.

At the Amsterdam airport, a machine would scan a passenger's passport and then show the flight information on a display screen.

The traveller would be able to select a seat and print out a luggage tag, which he would attach to baggage before placing it in a chute next to the kiosk.

The tag will contain a tiny radio transponder that can be read some distance away. The airline would know at once whether a bag had made it aboard a flight.

Schiphol officials expect that by 2015, about 90 per cent of its passengers would use the self-service machines, enabling the airport to handle a projected 50 per cent increase in travellers, while reducing the typical time in line by 10 per cent.

It would also alleviate concerns about a workforce shortage: Schiphol officials expect many workers to retire over the next five years.

Self-service also makes sense for passengers, who are becoming less dependent on humans for common transactions such as checking out books at the library, said Mr Paul Fijen, manager of passenger service for Dutch carrier KLM.

'I strongly believe it is of more value for a customer to be in control...than to see 10 (ticket) agents who are tired and stressed,' he said.

LOS ANGELES TIMES