At LAX, Your Face Is Now Your Boarding Pass
Carly Zinderman March 31, 2018
Lufthansa has begun using advanced technology to help make boarding quicker and easier. After initial testing, the program is now available at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX).
Boarding gates for Lufthansa at LAX are self-boarding and use sophisticated facial recognition cameras to capture passengers’ facial images as they approach the device. An image is captured and then sent to the CBP database for real-time matching and verification.
Within seconds a successful match is found and the system recognizes the passenger as “boarded.” Thanks to the tech, passengers will no longer need to show a boarding pass or passport at the gate, making the process much quicker and easier. In trials, passengers were able to board an A380 plane in around 20 minutes.
Bjoern Becker, Senior Director, Product Management Ground and Digital Services for Lufthansa explains that the new self-boarding system is part of the airline’s ever evolving efforts to use technology to improve passenger experience through innovation.
Due to an increase in travelers around the world, moving people through the boarding process is just one way that airline has found to improve the airport process. Furthermore, airlines won’t have to create their own biometric database as they can use a central CBP for security and accuracy.
Lufthansa partnered with Amadeus, the provider of Lufthansa’s Passenger Service System (Altéa) which includes the Altéa Departure Control solution to create the biometric boarding system. Based on its success at LAX, the airline plans to bring the trial service to other airports.
According to Becker, the airline believes that expanding the use of the biometric technology in the United States and around the world and continuing to find other innovative solutions will continue to improve traveler experiences in airports and help them get to their destinations faster and with fewer frustrations.
