SITA to Bring Biometric Passenger Identification Solutions to Qatar Airport

Karima Kouidri

SITA will soon bring its biometric passenger processing technology to the Hamad International Airport,

in Qatar, with the parties having just signed a Memorandum of Understanding to collaborate on advanced passenger processing solutions. The agreement will see SITA implement 62 of its biometric check-in kiosks at the airport, as well as the deployment of biometric e-gates.

The organizations will also trial the use of robots for passenger assistance, blockchain technology, and virtual and augmented reality technologies; but a statement announcing the MoU emphasized the importance of biometrics to HIA’s overall strategy, with HIA COO Badr Mohammed Al Meer explaining, “The use of biometrics as the only verification required at each passenger touch point along the airport journey will go a long way in improving the flow of passengers, providing a better travel experience as well as greater operational visibility for the stakeholders.”

The MoU comes after SITA and HIA trialled biometric exit screening last year, and soon after HIA worked with Iris ID to implement biometric passenger screening based on iris recognition earlier this year, further underling the airport’s commitment to the implementation of biometric technologies. For its part, SITA has just proclaimed the success of a biometric passenger identification program conducted in collaboration with JetBlue and the US Customs and Border Protection agency at Boston Logan International Airport. That program sought to replace passengers’ travel documents with facial recognition, suggesting that this modality will play a central role in SITA’s work with Hamad International Airport.

source : https://tinyurl.com/yb3pbjvb

Hamad International Airport reveals biometrics, robotics, blockchain, AR and VR technology plans

Karima Kouidri
Hani El-Assaad, SITA President, Middle East, India and Africa, and Engr. Badr Mohammed Al Meer, Chief Operating Officer, Hamad International Airport at the MoU signing.

Hamad International Airport (HIA) has revealed its plans to tap into a variety of new and emerging technologies as part of its “Smart Airport” vision.

HIA and SITA have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) which provides the framework for the two organisations to implement or trial biometrics, robots, blockchain, augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) technology solutions at the Doha hub airport.

The main focus of the MoU is to advance HIA’s plans to implement seamless identity management across all key passenger touch-points using biometrics. The formalisation of the partnership follows last year’s pilot of biometric exit checks.

‘Your face becomes your passport’

According to Suhail Kadri, Vice President Information Technology, Hamad International Airport, the implementation of biometric technology will help to “enable us to become a fully digital airport”.

Today, passengers departing from HIA have to show their boarding pass and/or passport at multiple touch-points but the use of facial recognition technology will remove the need to present physical documents.

Kadri explained: “Once you’ve registered the first contact at the airport, from then onwards all you need to do is show your face at check-in, self-bag drop, pre-border control, immigration and ultimately at the boarding gate.

“This, if you imagine, will completely transform how you experience the airport today,” he added. “Your face becomes your passport.”

Common-use kiosks and self-tagging

It has also been revealed that SITA will be supplying and commissioning 62 of its latest-generation common-use check-in kiosks with self-tagging capabilities, as well as e-gates prior to border control in departures. Initially, three kiosks and e-gates will be able to use biometric technology to identify passengers, while biometric sensors and readers can be added to the others at a later date.

Engr. Badr Mohammed Al Meer, Chief Operating Officer, Hamad International Airport, explained that biometric-based passenger processing will also deliver benefits to the airport and its partners. “The use of biometrics as the only verification required at each passenger touch-point along the airport journey will go a long way in improving the flow of passengers, providing a better travel experience as well as greater operational visibility for the stakeholders.”

The MoU also lays the foundations for future trials to evaluate the effectiveness of robots for passenger facilitation, blockchain technology for rapid and secure sharing of data across stakeholders, and the potential use of augmented and virtual reality for operational concepts.

source : https://tinyurl.com/yc797thu

Megahubs International Index 2017 The world’s most internationally connected airports

Karima Kouidri

See 2017’s edition of the Megahubs Index

Which airports are the most internationally connected in the world? Find out in 2017’s OAG Megahubs International Index as we rank the leading airports in the world in terms of connectivity and present them as a series of tables based on regional location and airline type.

And new this year, we are revealing the Megahubs US Index, focusing on the most connected airports in the United States.

 

source ; https://tinyurl.com/yd53qzmo

The top 10 ways the Internet of Things will shape the way we travel

Karima Kouidri

Have you ever noticed how many breadcrumbs you drop when you are eating a sandwich? And have you ever considered the variety of information that your trail of breadcrumbs leaves? For starters, it reveals the place where you’ve been. Perhaps it’s your favorite seat in the lunchroom, or the fact that you always eat at your desk. It also shows the kind of ingredients you prefer, like whole wheat over white, mustard with no mayo, or how messy or tidy you are.

When analyzed, the amount of data you provide by eating a simple snack is immense. The trace you leave behind is like a portrait, and it may reveal the best way to engage with you.

Like the breadcrumbs that fall off the sleeves of your shirt, the Internet of Things (IoT) can capture a treasure trove of data. Our travel habits are filled with data points that can be used to improve the travel experience to make it easier, faster and better than ever before.

So how can the Internet of Things shape the way we travel? Here are the top ten use cases Amadeus is looking at today:

  • Fuel Monitoring: The collection of aircraft data, such as weight of the load, weather patterns, trajectory or navigation, can be used to plan and reduce fuel consumption.
  • Passenger verification: Long security lines are the bane of airport managers and travelers alike. What if passports were replaced by a single biometrics scan that could act as a travel ID, or a smart phone app that stores securely encrypted personal data to share with traveler consent? Improved passenger verification could translate to less time boarding and more time spent shopping at the duty free shops.
  • Asset monitoring: Sensors can track and monitor assets like non-motorized ground support vehicles used to load suitcases in the airplane’s hold. Airports like Schiphol, in Amsterdam, are using that data to locate their vehicles and dispatch them in the most efficient way.
  • Predictive maintenance: Airports and airlines can’t afford to let things break down during peak hours. With sensors to monitor engine performance and other key systems, maintenance can be scheduled as soon as something looks off to reduce breakdowns, delays and costs.
  • Connected Vehicles: Ground transport is also a primordial contender for potential development. Analyzing real-time data from millions of connected cars can lead to enhanced safety and decision making – no more running the red light because you didn’t notice it. The use of Internet of Things sensors and connectivity will also improve how they are serviced, maintained and designed.
  • Connected Rooms: Guestroom automation in property management can help deliver better service and save costs. Using Radio Frequency ID (RFID) technology, hotels can track items in the room. The chip is read by sensors in the hotel room, and can be used by housekeeping to see if towels need to be replenished or if room-service trays need to be picked up.
  • Hyper-personalization: For hotels hyper-personalization defines a brand new guest experience – customized room settings, automated check-in, etc. Customer preferences can be stored so that favorite shows, preferred newspapers, or other details like extra towels or a yoga mat are already arranged before a guest arrives. Be one step ahead of the game and offer your regular business traveler the Financial Times in advance to foster loyalty.
  • Location-based interactions: They can provide contextual information to the user through location data. A business traveler might only have 20 minutes to eat between meetings. In that case, location data might suggest the best takeout restaurants nearby with the best customer reviews. If they are allergic to gluten, they could receive the nearest gluten-free restaurant recommendations in their neighborhood.
  • Wearables for improved operations: The use of Internet of Things on wearables can simplify operations like credit card payments or ticket access. Wrist bands can be your best ally when visiting a theme park. Disney’s MagicBands collect data from visitors to avoid issuing tickets, personalize the experience by keeping track of their preferences, and enable them to use the bands as an alternative payment method to credit cards.
  • Baggage tracking: Imagine if you could keep track of your bag in real time. Baggage tracking could ensure that lost baggage is a thing of the past.

The applications of the Internet of Things in travel are numerous. These are just a few of the use cases we’re looking at now. Are there others you’ve thought of? Let us know in the comments below.

source : https://tinyurl.com/y7ft8vrq

 

Hamad International Airport to explore biometrics, robotics, blockchain, AR and VR technology

Karima Kouidri
Hani El-Assaad, SITA President, Middle East, India and Africa, and Engr. Badr Mohammed Al Meer, Chief Operating Officer, Hamad International Airport at the MoU signing.

Hamad International Airport (HIA) and SITA have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) which provides the framework for the two companies to implement or trial biometrics, robots, blockchain, augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) technology solutions at the Doha hub airport.

The main focus of the MoU is to advance HIA’s plans to implement seamless identity management across all key passenger touch-points using biometrics. The formalisation of the partnership follows last year’s pilot of biometric exit checks.

It has also been revealed that SITA will be supplying and commissioning 62 of its latest-generation common-use check-in kiosks with self-tagging capabilities, as well as e-gates prior to border control in departures. Initially, three kiosks and e-gates will be able to use biometric technology to identify passengers, while biometric sensors and readers can be added to the others at a later date.

Engr. Badr Mohammed Al Meer, Chief Operating Officer, Hamad International Airport, said: “HIA’s efforts towards innovation and its strategic alliances with key partners such as SITA all contribute towards its ‘Smart Airport’ vision that was officially launched in May 2016 under the patronage of HE the Prime Minister and Minister of Interior Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa al-Thani. Our aim is to empower our passengers to experience a seamless journey at their own pace, all the while keeping them informed about what matters to them most.

“The use of biometrics as the only verification required at each passenger touch-point along the airport journey will go a long way in improving the flow of passengers, providing a better travel experience as well as greater operational visibility for the stakeholders. SITA has already demonstrated excellent capability and agility in pioneering and optimising biometric exit checks for the boarding process at HIA. We believe that such joint efforts will contribute to digital transformations across the air transport industry.”

Hani El-Assaad, SITA President, Middle East, India and Africa, commented: “We at SITA welcome the opportunity to work with a world-leading hub such as Hamad International Airport to push the boundaries of innovation to truly change the way passengers will travel in future. Our vision to make air travel easier at every step fits neatly with Hamad International Airport’s ‘Smart Airport’ vision and together we can help reshape the future of air transport.”

The MoU also lays the foundations for future trials to evaluate the effectiveness of robots for passenger facilitation, blockchain technology for rapid and secure sharing of data across stakeholders, and the potential use of augmented and virtual reality for operational concepts.

source : https://tinyurl.com/yc797thu

The Design Solution: Lighting up the travel retail experience

Karima Kouidri

Mary Rushton-Beales, founder of Lighting Design House,

is one of the industry’s leading specialists in the specialist art of designing lighting for airports.

Anticipation, anticipation, anticipation – whether a visit to an airport is for business or leisure almost every traveller experiences this emotion. Will the trip be a success? Will the family enjoy themselves? Will they be safe? Will they check-in on time? There was a time in my life where you could also add to the list of concerns, ‘Will there be anything in Duty Free for my family?’. This was because, sad but true, I felt guilty at having abandoned my family to go out and ‘bring home the bacon’.

I have been lucky in the course of my work to have visited many amazing airports in the Far East, Australia, Middle East, USA and Europe – and, often working with The Design Solution, have designed the lit environments in many of them. Experienced airport designers know how to imbue the fabric of an airport with a sense of place, how to guide customers efficiently to their departure gates, how to inspire them with interesting commercial offers and, ultimately, how to make them feel excited when they travel. Light is a hugely influential factor in that passenger experience.

Having travelled at many different times of the day and night it often hits me how difficult it is to get the lit environment right according to the real-time body clock of a traveller. I’ve felt assaulted by the extra-bright lights of Dubai Duty Free when travelling back on the 0230 flight; I’ve been bemused by the very low light level at T5 LHR when checking in for an 0615 flight and inspired by the soaring colours of the archways, perfectly enhanced by just the right amount of daylight at Madrid’s famous Barajas airport – noticed in passing whilst running for a connecting flight from Gate 4 to Gate 94 (yes, really).

My professional instinct is that if you get the daylight and artificial light right then that creates a perfect background canvas upon which to build the functional and commercial spaces of the airport. Grand examples of this are Shenzen Bao’anl (by Fuksas) and Mumbai’s curved concrete (by SOM).

In both cases the combination of light and shade by day calms and cools the spaces and creates visual interest. In darkness the structures are enhanced from outside and within, once again creating a calm backdrop for the retail and food and beverage offers.

Other human-scale examples of daylight and artificial light balance are Alicante-Elche and Lisbon airports.

Alicante controls the strong daylight using clerestory windows and central skylights. In the evening, suspended circle lights back up into the structure and also provide low levels of background light to the concourse. Artificial lighting details built into the food court tables add to the final picture.

Lisbon uses a mixture of oval shapes in the ceiling – sometimes daylight, sometimes artificial light – ensuring an even light level for circulation.

Having established a calming backdrop it is then up to the airport interior architects and travel retail designers to inject excitement and curiosity into the minds of airport customers. One of the most exciting sights I have ever seen is the digital artwork at LAX Los Angeles airport.

Editorial credit: Joseph Sohm / Shutterstock.com

I had seen photos of it but in the flesh, beyond doubt, it is the most ambitious and effective public space branding/art that I have ever seen. Co-ordinated over several types, shapes and sizes of digital media, the overall impression is extremely powerful. At the same time it is commercially viable for the airport through the use of sponsorship.

On a more prosaic level the massive bank of 50 or so plasma screens in the Duty Free shop at T5, all coordinated together has a more edgy, urban and ‘in your face’ impact. It’s engaging, entertaining and effective – I bought something.

Choosing a favourite among travel retail environments is difficult; not least because there is such a huge variety of lighting techniques to choose from. But for longevity of concept and overall powerful impression I would have to choose the West Duty Free offer at Suvarnabhumi Airport.

Originally designed in 2006, in 2012 the rules for advertising of Liquor and Tobacco changed drastically in Thailand and an entirely new design concept based on different finishes and lighting techniques was created by The Design Solution – and led to a 25% increase in sales. Travelling through Bangkok earlier in the year I was pleased to see that the offer looks just as enticing and interesting as it did 4 years ago – emphasising the power of light.

source :by The Design Solution Source: ©The Moodie Davitt Report

The World’s Biggest Airport Will Open in 2019

Karima Kouidri

Beijing‘s new airport is set to be the world’s biggest,

according to Reuters.

The Beijing New Airport, opening in the southern Daxing district in 2019, will serve as a way to meet the growing needs of air transport in Beijing and enhance the country’s civil aviation presence.

It will become the new base for China Southern Airlines and China Eastern Airlines, according to China’s National Development and Reform Commission.

This will put the SkyTeam alliance members under one roof, allowing for easy flight connections for passengers.

According to BuroHappold Engineering, part of a consortium team that won the competition to help design elements of the space, visitors will find an array of open and expansive interiors.

Courtesy of Zaha Hadid Architects 

The late architect Zaha Hadid designed the Beijing New Airport Terminal Building, which will be filled with civic gardens and include separate passenger areas for international and domestic flights to create a more compact building and reduce travel times.

“The overall symmetry of the airport terminal design, together with its flowing, interconnected forms, create a fluid composition which evokes the harmony and balance evidence in Chinese landscapes, while its colors and materials are an expression of visual language within traditional Chinese culture,” states Zaha Hadid Architecture’s website.

Courtesy of Zaha Hadid Architects 

Innovative design features within the new 700,000 square-meter terminal will include a central hub with six curved spikes with walkways that connect to one point to make navigating the terminal easier.

The initial opening phase of the airport will have four runways, while two later phases will lead to additional areas that can push the airport’s capacity to 100 million passengers a year.

Construction is also taking place on a high-speed railway station that passengers will be able to use to get the airport, the State Council of the People’s Republic of China recently announced.

The new airport will help ease travel times, with Beijing’s Capital International Airport currently recognized as the second busiest in the world.

This article originally appeared on TravelandLeisure.com

Building Smart Airport Capabilities with Data

Karima Kouidri

Building Smart Airport Capabilities with Data

There is much hype these days around big data and analytics. As data becomes more pervasive and is generated at a higher speed, we need to figure out how to make decisions quickly using the information collected. We now have the opportunity to move away from decision-making based on intuition and experience, and towards decisions made based on insights gathered from analysing data.

For us at Changi Airport Group (CAG), we view data as a capability that can be used to overcome constraints like manpower and space, and to deliver a superior experience to our customers. In particular, there are three data-driven capabilities that CAG is working on to achieve its vision of becoming a smart airport.

Reacting quickly when and before something happens

We strive to ensure that each and every one of the 160,000 passengers passing through Changi Airport each day has a stress-free experience. In the rare event that there is a gap in service, the ability to recover quickly is critical.

We use data proactively to anticipate our customers’ needs and intentions. This helps us to react almost instantaneously to any issues that may arise. Doing this successfully results in service that is positively surprising to our customers.

We have instant feedback systems located all throughout our terminals. For example, if there is a service disruption (e.g. faulty flush) in one of our restrooms, this information can be sent via a customer touch point to the supervisor, who can then respond quickly to the situation.

Planning for the long haul

Accumulating data over time allows us to plan for changes and improvements to our infrastructure and create new capabilities. In the past, we thought that service failures in our restrooms were due to poor rostering of our cleaners/contractors. With data, we uncovered patterns over a longer term that pointed to a different cause.

We noted that the standard of a particular restroom was still not up to scratch even with different cleaners working at different times of the day. We discovered that the fault was due to the fans in the toilet failing faster than usual. Without data analytics, we would not have been able to discern the problem until the fan was due for a replacement.

IT takes a village

The third area we are working on is to create platforms where different parties within the airport community can share data for better outcomes. The airport is a complex system of systems, with over 50,000 staff from 200 organisations working together in one place.

Often, the key performance indicators (KPIs) of organisations working together are not aligned. One organisation’s KPIs may compromise the performance of others. The ground handlers would want to turn around the aircraft as quickly as possible, but this could result in planes lining up on the runway, making it difficult for air traffic control to regulate traffic.

To ensure that everyone is aligned, we have developed a platform that gives all stakeholders the same view of the operational data, and allows information sharing among stakeholders, so that they can collaborate and optimise operations on the apron.

Enabling through Technology

The three capabilities described above are underpinned by three technology enablers: sensors, data fusion and artificial intelligence (AI).

Getting a good sense of things

Sensors are being used across airports to measure everything from queues and customer feedback to airplane arrivals.

In the past, one CCTV might be used to track queues, but in an Internet of Things world, the LED light in the camera can also act as a beacon that can collect other types of information. By having a masterplan, we can optimise the use of devices.

Data Fusion

We are also focused on fusing separate pieces of data collected from our sensors to form a bigger picture that can give us useful insights. For instance, we can predict the number of people arriving at a certain period of time at a certain immigration counter. That piece of information by itself is not very useful, but when we merge it with other data, such as the length of queues at immigration, flight arrival timings, we can then form a picture that can be used to improve operations.

Predictive Artificial Intelligence

The third enabler is using artificial intelligence (AI) to help us manage and analyse the data we collect. For complex situations, the AI engine can amalgamate a host of different data – from departure and arrival times to which city a plane is coming from and the weather – and recognise underlying patterns much faster than a human can.

One of our projects is to use AI to predict landing times. The end goal is to provide accurate landing times for customers and to have staff ready at the right time and place for each arrival flight.

Protecting our data

As we build up our data capability, sharing information and insights across different systems, while using machines to supplement decision making, cyber security remains a key priority. We continue to invest in information assurance and cyber security to ensure that we operate effectively and safely.

People are the glue

A smart airport will help to improve the deployment of scarce resources like manpower and equipment and allow us to better serve our passengers, which is the mission at the heart of all we do.

Technology is one part of the equation, but the most important resource is our people. Collaboration among the airport community is the mental glue that will hold the smart airport vision together. That means we have to take good care of our people and keep them motivated for the journey ahead.

written by Steve Lee

Chief Information Officer & Group SVP (Technology) at Changi Airport

source : https://tinyurl.com/y8fr9s5j