Alaska Air isn't reinventing passenger check-in. The airline already has hundreds of airport self-service kiosks that let passengers get their boarding passes. More little changes are coming down the line. Alaska Air has scanned in the photos of some frequent fliers, so eventually swiping that boarding-pass bar code will bring up the passenger's picture on a gate agent's screen. Eventually, all these little add-ons, changes and improvements could shave minutes or even hours, not just seconds, off that trip through the airport.
Little projects cost less.
They get done faster. They succeed more often. It's not always possible to break the giant, unwieldy projects we usually dream up into modular, manageable miniprojects. And it's not often easy. Politics and budget-envy get in the way.