PTE 2019: Athens airport trials SITA’s biometric identity solution at security

By March 27, 2019 January 16th, 2020 News

Following in the path of airports such as Brisbane, Doha, Muscat, Orlando, Miami and Boston, SITA has announced during this year’s Passenger Terminal Expo on Wednesday 27 March, that Athens International Airport is trialling its Smart Path biometric technology at security.

Using facial biometrics to identify themselves at at key stages through their journey passengers flying with Aegean Airlines will benefit from a faster, more efficient journey through the airport.

“Passengers really appreciate the ease of using SITA’s Smart Path trial,” said Alexandros Ziomas, acting director, IT&T Business Unit at Athens International Airport. “It has reduced the time taken to check in and verify passenger identity at security to only a few seconds. It will solve a key challenge for us by ensuring a steady flow of passengers to the security,” he added. “This is a service we would like to extend to other steps in the journey over time.”

A cost effective and easy to implement solution, one of Smart Path’s key benefits is the technology’s ability to integrate with the airport’s existing common-use check-in kiosks and boarding gates, hence making it available to multiple airlines. “The improvement to security and the passenger experience is tremendously positive,” said Sergio Colella, SITA president for Europe, explaining the Smart Path can be tailored to an airport’s or airline’s specific requirements, allowing Athens to offer the service to other airlines in the future, including Aegean’s Star Alliance partners.

MAG selects SITA for upgrade

The show has also provided a platform for SITA to announce that Manchester Airports Group (MAG) has selected the global IT provider to implement further passenger self-service across the group’s three main airports: Manchester, London Stansted and East Midlands airports. It has also been selected to carry out an upgrade to Manchester Airport’s baggage reconciliation systems, enabling the airport to better track bags at key points throughout the journey. As well as a significant increase in staffed and self-service check-in kiosks SITA will introduce its self-bag drop in Terminals 1 and 3, enabling passengers to check in their bags in under a minute.

Baggage will be able to be smoothly tracked and accounted for at every stage of the journey, which will have an impact on reducing the possibility of bags being mishandled or lost and will provide passengers with reassurance of their bags whereabouts.

Nicholas Woods, CIO of MAG, said: “Our passenger numbers continue to grow rapidly across our three airports. At the same time our passengers want to spend as little time completing the travel steps such as check-in, bag drop and boarding. We recognise that better technology allows us to process more passengers as well as reduce queues and SITA have provided a solution to deliver on both requirements.”

 

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