In fact, when National Airlines went out of business last November, McCarran's IT staff was able to move another airline into its counter space within a few hours. If the airlines had been using proprietary systems, this process might have taken days.
Big carriers also dislike CUTE because it makes it easier for small airlines to move in and set up shop. Discount carriers don't have to buy, deploy and maintain their own ticketing and baggage systems; they only have to write the scripts to connect their back ends to CUTE. The ticketing applications are accessed using terminal emulation, so airline employees use the same applications they're accustomed to using.
There is, however, one disadvantage for the discount airlines: Because they generally don't operate internationally, they have no code base and no experience writing interfaces to CUTE systems. This may explain why Southwest Airlines is the lone CUTE holdout at McCarran despite being the airport's No. 1 airline, representing nearly a quarter of McCarran's volume.
"Southwest has a very simple business model that's been successful, and they don't like to tinker with it," Marchi says, referring to Southwest's overall low-tech approach and its practice of buying technology in liquidation sales from defunct airlines.
Southwest also isn't part of the International Air Transport Association (IATA), the body that sets standards for boarding passes, baggage tags and other documents. This organization makes sure passenger data is formatted similarly enough across airlines that it's transferable. Thanks to IATA, if your itinerary takes you on multiple airlines, you don't have to fetch your bags and check in again. If Southwest is part of your travel plans, you do.
