Check In To The Future

From robot assistants to augmented reality, Marisa Cannon rounds up the latest advances helping to smooth your journey through the airport.

In the early days of commercial aviation, airports were small, modest facilities, made up of little more than an airfield and a solitary terminal. As airlines multiplied and passenger numbers soared, airports have been driven to meet new levels of customer service, streamlining the way passengers are processed and exploring new ways of entertaining them while they wait. Here is a round-up of new technological and recreational developments at airports around the world.

BIOMETRIC SCREENING

Passengers can be asked to show their documents up to five times when travelling through an airport. In the past few years, airports have begun introducing biometric devices at checkpoints, speeding up the screening process by verifying a person’s identity with a face or fingerprint scan.

In March, BA launched a facial recognition system that captures a passenger’s features and allows them to board the plane without showing any documents. Currently available for some domestic flights departing Heathrow T5, the system will eventually be added to international routes. Amsterdam Schiphol and Dutch carrier KLM launched a similar trial earlier this year.

In the US, a fingerprint or iris scan will soon replace boarding passes at 22 major airports, with biometric lanes launched this year at Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson, Los Angeles International, Minneapolis St Paul, New York JFK and La Guardia.

More ambitious still is Australia’s “Seamless Traveller” initiative, which aims to automate 90 per cent of screening processes at the country’s international airports with no human interaction by 2020.

BEACON TECHNOLOGY