While most of McCarran's off-airport check-in services are geared to tourists and conventioneers, Randy Walker, director of the Clark County Department of Aviation, said local businesspeople checking bags can turn them in on their way to work and then go directly to the airport gate when they're ready to fly.

The service, known as Airport SpeedCheck Advance, is offered by Bags to Go through a contract with McCarran, and has been available for passengers flying only Southwest Airlines. But in the months ahead, other airlines will be coming online.

In addition to checking bags for Southwest flights, Bags to Go will add United, Frontier and Delta, representing about 52 percent of the seats in the Las Vegas market every day. Walker said US Airways is in talks to initiate service, which would bump it up to about 70 percent of the market.

"The service is underused, so there really aren't any lines," Walker said. "If I were going out on a business trip and had to check bags, I'd go in before work or on a lunch break and take care of that to avoid some of the long lines at the ticket counter."

McCarran has been on the cutting edge of developing off-site baggage check-ins for years. Resorts were anxious to accommodate the service because it gave customers more time to spend money at their places instead of toting bags to the airport.

About seven years ago, a Henderson company, working with the Federal Aviation Administration, developed a system introduced at hotels in which tourists could check their bags as they checked out of their hotel rooms.

Certified Airline Passenger Services, or CAPS, was on the verge of being profitable when 9-11 occurred. Company executives couldn't keep the service operating while awaiting new security mandates from the newly formed Department of Homeland Security and the Transportation Security Administration.

"But we never gave up on the concept," Walker said.

Neither did similar services operating in Florida, where Bags to Go is based.

McCarran officials spent about $500,000 for the computer equipment, kiosks and counter space at the four locations where SpeedCheck Advance is offered.

In Las Vegas, the service was reintroduced at the Venetian, then added to the Luxor and the Las Vegas Convention Center. When the McCarran Rent-a-Car Center opened south of the airport earlier this year, it also offered the off-airport bag check-in, and that's where it's easiest for locals to check suitcases in advance.

The service costs $20 per passenger for up to three bags, but Walker said now that more airlines are coming online, airport officials and the contractor would consider tinkering with the price structure to give a break to those with only one bag.

Passengers can turn in bags as much as 12 hours before traveling and as few as 2 1/2 hours before flight time.

With more airlines participating in the program, Walker is optimistic that more hotels will sign on with the program.

"I think it's been a little slow on getting this out to more properties because when you only have Southwest, you've got about one-third of our traffic, but when you add the others, it becomes a much more attractive service," he said.

While the airlines have been slow to sign on to the program, partially because one major carrier, American Airlines, has philosophical concerns about whether the airport should be providing the service, most are in agreement that the service could help shorten lines at McCarran.

Business hasn't been very brisk for the service. Since the service began in May 2006, it has had about 12,000 customers, or about 700 a month - a fraction of the average 2 million outgoing passengers each month.

Walker is optimistic the numbers will improve with more airlines, based on an informal survey Bags to Go conducted.

In April, Walker asked the company to track how many potential customers the service turned away because a particular carrier wasn't a part of it. Walker found that in four months, the company rejected more than 16,000 potential customers of airlines that didn't participate, including 4,500 US Airways customers, 4,200 Delta customers, 3,800 from American and 3,000 from Continental.

Walker hopes that eventually 10 percent of the bags checked at McCarran would be done through off-airport check-ins. It's part of a larger effort to increase airport capacity during the time it takes to expand facilities.

"We just have to be patient with it," Walker said. "If we can get 2.3 million people a year to check their bags away from the airport, we'll be able to run the airport more efficiently."

McCarran is in the midst of adding new gates in the D concourse and is preparing the site of the new Terminal 3, expected to be operational by 2011. A new airport south of Las Vegas in the Ivanpah Valley, to operate in addition to McCarran, isn't expected to be built until 2017.