British Airways Automates Boarding Process with Biometric Technology
British Airways pioneered the use of biometric technology in automation of the boarding of an aircraft. On January 18th, the airline service showcased an automatic boarding process with the help of highly advanced facial recognition technology. This is not just a luxury or marketing campaign for the company, it became a necessity.
Prior to this event, in December 2017, a stowaway passenger was found on board of a nonstop Al Nippon Airways flight that was traveling from LA to Tokyo. The flight had to return to the LA airport again despite having been en route for three hours. This happened because the passenger created a false boarding pass and got on board. This did not just cause trouble for the passengers on board who had to fly four thousand miles extra but also caused a massive loss both for the ANA and the LA airport. These sort of events call for an efficient, secure checking system at airports.
Hence, British Airways used the automated boarding system and passengers boarded the plane under 20 minutes almost without any need for manual assistance. Passengers went straight to the boarding gates that had four different stations with scanners, looked into the camera and then were allowed to proceed to board. The software analyzed the passenger’s face and recognized them according to the boarding list.
The system uses high-resolution cameras to analyze the passenger’s face according to their unique facial characteristics. After the scan, the biometric data is verified and the passenger is granted access to boarding. This will reduce a lot of hassle and maximize security and efficiency. Also, quicker boarding will result in less ground time for the aircrafts. Eventually, this will also lead to greater number of flights per day in an airport. All the related parties in the process will be benefited with this automated unique system.
Such thing can be also achieved by M2SYS’ SecuredPass™, a border control system. This system can not only be set in an airport, but connects the whole country into one mass database system by connecting visa offices, airports, docks, stations, and borders. Travelers will just have to identify themselves using their biometric data and the rest is done by SecuredPass™.
