SITA today announces its most extensive biometric deployment to date and a new completely contactless experience for passengers traveling through Beijing Capital International Airport (BCIA).
BCIA has completely automated the entire passenger journey using SITA technology – from check-in and bag drop through to immigration, security and finally boarding. Passengers only need to enroll once during check-in, then experience a seamless journey through the airport enabled by facial recognition. Improved processing efficiency means shorter queuing time and more social distancing for all passengers. An added benefit during the COVID-19 era is that the process removes the need to touch any airport equipment, reducing the risk of infection.
SITA Smart Path has processed over 400 passengers boarding an Airbus A380 in less than 20 minutes. It also enables hands-free and touchless Duty-Free payment, removing the need to retrieve and show a boarding pass at check out. The SITA Smart Path solution is the largest rollout of its kind and enables passengers to glide through the airport using only their face as their boarding pass, eliminating the need for physical touchpoints and minimizing the risk of COVID-19 infection for passengers.
The deployment included the implementation of over 600 biometric checkpoints through the airport including 250 lanes of automatic gates, 80 kiosks, and 30 self-bag drop stations which will process passengers from international flights.
Sumesh Patel, SITA’s President of APAC said: “Automation is more important than ever in this COVID-19 environment to better enable social distancing and passenger flow without compromising processing times. The BCIA implementation is our most comprehensive deployment of next-generation technology and signposts growing interest from the market to automate and optimize airport operations through smart technology.
“With Duty-Free shopping now also optimized by SITA Smart Path we’re beginning to uncover the full potential of biometrics to boost passenger safety, convenience and confidence, in turn helping the air transport industry to recover and evolve.”
