I just went through check-in and security at San Francisco International in a whopping 10 minutes, give or take. To be fair, there wasn't a huge crowd, but that wasn't the real contributor to the speed.

I'm flying United Airlines, and when I arrived I found that e-ticket holders had an option of using self-check-in automated terminals. Using any credit card, you identify yourself to the terminal, and touch-screen-type the first few letters of your destination. You are then brought up the options of identifying how many pieces of baggage you're going to check, reviewing and changing your seat even, and finally printing your own boarding pass. All that is left is to actually hand over your baggage, have your photo ID verified and collect your baggage claim tickets. Whoom, you're ready to go. The process of security isn't that much different, but they just seemed more stream-lined in the processes. My laptop was still examined as a separate item, they still looked over my backpack more than once (I have a notepad/clipboard I keep meaning to take out, because the metal cross-spring looks funky on an X-ray), and so on. But they seemed more practiced an comfortable. No one appeared to be just going through the motions or even bored. Just... efficient.

Of course, I now have over an hour to kill before my flight even starts to board.

(And yes, I know that the use of a credit card for ID is more than a little iffy, but between the e-ticket and the frequent-flyer account that already tags me the cat is pretty much out of the bag anyway.)