All of this tech should
not only reduce queues
but also better inform
flyers about how much
time to leave
It passes that data on for the calculation
of average queue times that can be sent
to a phone or app, predictive queue
times based on current events and past
patterns, and queues at places such as
traffic stands. Such systems are in place
at New York JFK, Iceland’s Keflavik,
Amsterdam Schiphol, Manchester
and Birmingham.
It could mean an airline or ride-
hailing app suggesting what time
to leave home to catch your flight,
incorporating current traffic, vehicle
queues around the airport and
predicted security wait times a few
hours ahead.
“When you don’t know how long
a line is, the experience tends to feel
between 20 and 30 per cent longer
than it is,” said Iinside chief executive
Sam Kamel. The technolog y is all
about “taking the unpredictability out
of the airport experience”, he added.
4
MORE BIOMETRICS
We’ve recently written
about the use of
biometrics (“Face of the
future”, March 2019
issue), and it is clear
that there is a boom in
companies providing such
services. These include “end-to-end”
or partial biometric systems that use
facial recognition at check-in, bag-
drop, security and boarding , as well as
some that use iris, fingerprint and even
voice recognition.
Panasonic had an impressive range of
facial recognition technologies at the
Expo. They included an information
screen that will highlight your flight
number and gate as you look at it, and
a robot on trial at Tokyo Narita that
will provide information such as how
to get to your gate based on the flight
information it matched up with your
face (you provide the biometric data
and your passport information at a
kiosk during check-in).
movements to lower the average
journey time from airport arrival
to the departure lounge to
20 minutes.
Futuristic-looking
crowd monitoring
systems at the Expo
showed everything from
an individual’s gender
and height to whether they were
a passenger or airport staff, even
using facial recognition to ascertain
how they might be feeling. All are
creating anonymous databases that
airports can use to understand where
customers are going and when.
It’s not just your face that airports
are interested in – Italian seat
company Tecno displayed seats that
track how long someone sits in them.
They also monitor when passengers
are using tables and plug sockets, all
aimed at allowing better decision-
making on where to place them.
3
IMPROVED TIME
MANAGEMENT
All of this should not only
reduce queues but also
better inform flyers about
how much time to leave.
US company Iinside uses
lidar scanners to detect
human shapes at a dozen US airports.
43
