Collaboration is key to widespread implementation of biometric boarding for air travel

Facial recognition technology is gaining adoption by airlines and airports to expedite passenger identity verification. In the past year, British Airways, Air Asia, JetBlue, Lufthansa and others have implemented biometric scanning at airports around the world.

But in order to scale this technology, there must be global consensus and collaboration among all air transport industry stakeholders and governments that have the primary responsibility for securing their borders.

That’s one of the conclusions in a report from SITA, Biometrics for Better Travel: An ID Management Revolution.

In the report, SITA’s director of strategy and innovation, Sean Farrell, notes that industries outside of travel are also addressing issues of identity management. Over time this will likely lead to broader “trust frameworks” and interoperability that will allow passengers to register a single biometric credential to travel to every airport in every country.

“There are considerable efforts under way to standardize identity management driven by many use cases such as mobile and online commerce, banking and access to government services,” Farrell says.

“The standards that emerge will likely come from outside our industry with the backing of organizations such as Google and Amazon and international government bodies such as ICAO.” 

According to SITA, 57% of passengers said they would use biometrics instead of showing a passport or boarding pass, and 63% of airports and 43% of airlines plan to invest in biometric identity management solutions in the next three years.

“With passenger numbers set to double by 2036, airlines and airports need to be able to move passengers through these checks as securely and quickly as possible. Efficient identity management is essential for better security while at the same time improving the passenger experience. Biometrics is the technology that can deliver this,” Farrell says.

According to SITA’s 2017 IT Trends Insights report, airports give high priority to both increasing security and increasing revenue. In this report, SITA notes that while biometric boarding has a direct link to security, it can also impact revenue since “satisfied passengers who swiftly complete the airport checkpoints are in a better mood to spend and have more time to do so.”

For airlines, the 2017 IT Trends Insights report found their interest in improving ID management is driven primarily by a desire to improve their operational efficiency – decreasing aircraft turn-around time – while also ensuring those boarding have the right to board.

SITA notes that by automating the process, biometric technology lessens the security risks associated with manual checks.

Biometric technology can be integrated into existing infrastructure such as kiosks, bag drop and boarding gates. However, since at most large international airports that equipment may be shared by multiple airlines that each handle boarding differently, the industry may need to develop standards to define that implementation.