Airlines

Narita goes paperless for departing passengers with biometric technology

Narita International Airport has launched a new pilot scheme allowing passengers to ditch nearly all the paperwork thanks to biometric technology.

Following an initial pilot scheme conducted with Amadeus and Japanese IT company, the NEC Corporation, passengers departing on a flight can use a new biometric kiosk where their face is photographed and checked against their passport.

Once verified, luggage can be dropped off at an Auto Bag Drop unit before passing through security and the boarding gate with their identities scanned and checked by further cameras

The biometric process uses IATA One ID standard and, following a successful pilot run at selected gates in Terminals 1 and 2, will be rolled out for all international departures in July.

Narita International Airport Corporation manager mechanical systems engineering department Masato Kitagawa said: “Everyone at Narita Airport is proud to have delivered Japan’s first end-to-end biometric departure process.

“Our passengers will benefit from a low-touch, automated experience that increases safety and convenience. Biometric technology is an incredibly powerful tool and key in addressing the challenges posed by Covid-19.”

Richard Dinkelmann, CEO at ICM Airport Technics, an Amadeus Company, added: “This has been an extremely rewarding project that sees NEC’s facial recognition software deployed on Amadeus’ market-leading hardware for the first time.

“We’ve worked very closely together in order to create a contactless boarding process and to deliver on the requirements of both Narita International Airport Corporation and the Japanese government.”

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