Hello and welcome to today's independent travel podcast with me, Simon Calder. It's Thursday the 3rd of July,

and I'm speaking to you from Degendorf-Haltbahnhof in Bavaria in Germany, and I'm on my way to Munich Airport in order to fly to London Heathrow.

Weeks ago, I paid Luftanzer the German airline £185 for a return

flight from Heathrow to Munich. It's a non-refundable fare and yet 30 hours before my flight home

I have to go online and say, yes, I do intend to travel. It's a very disagreeable process, I find. It's the opposite of

the James Bond villain line I've been expecting you. Airlines across the world are saying,

oh, you've just booked a flight, but that doesn't mean that we're expecting you. And the process

of trying to check in online

for Luftanzer was horrible, partly because I'm a bad German speaker. I had to scroll through

the possible homeland before coming up on Veringetis, Koenigreich, which is United Kingdom.

Then, even though I'd filled in all my personal details, and I haven't changed my

nationality, my gender, my passport, or my reason for travel since I flew out on Saturday,

Lufthansa wanted that all again. And I just wonder if perhaps they could use the details I provided

before I flew out. And then, of course, the kicker, something

went wrong. We are currently experiencing technical difficulties. Please try again later. It was

miserable. And I contend also unnecessary. In 2025, I can't see any purpose of check-in. It used to be, of course,

that tickets were ridiculously expensive, but they were also flexible, and if you didn't show up,

you'd be able to claim a full refund or travel on any flight you liked in future. So it made

sense to have check-in at the airport. Most passengers were checking in bags,

so it was acceptable to have that step, and because the flight coupons had to be physically torn from

the ticket and exchange for a boarding pass, yes, check-in was necessary, but now, of course,

I've got my boarding pass on my phone.

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