With twice as many passengers to absorb 15 years from now Airports and airlines have a huge challenge ahead of them. Since it’s impossible for them to double real estate and staff in such short period, they will have to turn to technology to get the existing manpower and infrastructure to work more efficiently.

Air passengers want more control over their #travelexperience and reduced waiting times for mandatory airport processes. That's according to the results of the International Air Transport Association (IATA)'s 2017 Global Passenger Survey (GPS) . They want airport checks such as immigration, boarding and bag drop to take less time, and avoid having to show passport and boarding pass again and again.

Technology is there to provide a smooth way through all airport processes, relying on one single Digital Identity Token for all stages of their journey. Two thirds of the world’s airports and airlines are already investing heavily in biometric tech research and development to secure passenger throughput, according to SITA.

The GPS also found that 74% of passengers used an electronic boarding pass on a smartphone in the past 12 months and passengers said they would use a digital passport on their smartphone, removing the need for the traditional paper passport.

Passengers want more control and less queuing, and this comes through doing more by themselves

Passengers are least happy when they feel their time is not being used efficiently. Lengthy security and border control processes are the largest areas of frustration for travelers. Here’s the truth the same survey reveals: the maximum acceptable queuing time at immigration is 10 minutes and passengers expect to wait no longer than three minutes when using the bag-drop.

Besides efficient queuing process, Automated Border Control (ABC) gates, self-boarding gates and self-bag drops can improve the passenger experience. Automation and digitization through biometrics have a key role to play as a facilitator for all the processes happening at an airport, from check in to boarding.

By automating the passenger verification process using biometrics, ABC gates are already allowing for a seamless, less intrusive and faster experience. But there are also benefits in terms of security, as biometrics can help spot people attempting to travel with a document that is genuine but was issued to someone else. Lookalike fraud is one of the most common document fraud, and untrained airline personnel would have hard time verifying that the person presenting the document is indeed its holder.

Furthermore, when biometrics is used to #authenticate the passenger at boarding, the system can automatically identify in seconds those passengers who are exiting with a different ID document from the one they used at entry, or when someone is exiting after expiration of their visa.

Bringing it all together: biometrics & digitization, collaboration & communication

Creating a Secure Digital Identity Token derived from the travel document as early as possible in the journey, will save passengers from presenting their passport and boarding pass several times, from the moment they enter the airport to when they board the plane. Instead, their face will be their token, allowing them to breeze through all the different touchpoints. Since we have now reached a point where speed of capture and matching as well as image quality and cost of equipment are no longer an issue, those biometric journeys will be flourishing in airports worldwide. The remaining challenge is not technological, rather environmental. On site conditions as well as stakeholder collaboration are the next big things we have to work on.

Camera orientation to adapt angles of capture and variations in lighting are one of the essential parameters to take into account when installing such face capture solutions, as shadows and reflections can affect accuracy. This can only be fine-tuned on site, as each location will have its own set of constraints.

Besides the physical aspects, collaboration will be essential to offer an end to end experience. Airports have complex ecosystems, with many different processes, each owned by different parties. For example, airlines own check-in, bag drop and boarding, either direct, or via shared systems, security is owned by a third party and immigration by the government. Airports, airlines, their respective providers as well as border forces will have to join forces to offer a new, simplified journey to travelers. The challenge here is not about the technology, but rather about finding a shared route for different processes and the right mix between conflicting KPIs!

Data protection and respect of user privacy will have to be part of the secret sauce too, and here again, the technology is here, with methods of data segregation and encryption, and the capacity to control who accesses it. User privacy will have to be ensured with opt in, opt out mechanisms and accompanied by clear communication on what passenger data is used for, by whom, how long it is kept in the systems, etc. This is essential to ensure user trust in the system and passenger willingness to use it.

Face as a token, the win-win-win

For airports, airlines and border forces alike, automated processes leveraging face biometrics are the promise for less bottlenecks, higher security, improved traveler satisfaction and potential for brand differentiation as well as allowing more focus on what’s really important: security and passenger experience. What would that translate to? Border police would concentrate on the actual risks and automate formalities for trusted travelers, while airports and airlines would focus their staff on helping people who are in need of assistance and building up conversations with customers rather than being busy with tedious, repetitive tasks.