Lufthansa will expand a biometrics-based boarding program,
which it reports can enable a 350-passenger A380 to be boarded in about 20
minutes, to more of its U.S. airports after a trial run at Los Angeles
International Airport.
The carrier developed the program alongside Amadeus—which
supplies Lufthansa with the Altea Departure Control tool—U.S. Customs and
Border Protection, border control technology supplier Vision-Box and Los Angeles
World Airports Authority. They installed gates that can capture facial images
by camera as passengers approach. Those images are matched against records in
the CBP database. Once that match is made, which takes only a few seconds, the
passenger is marked as "boarded" without needing to show a passport
or boarding pass.
Lufthansa reported that feedback during the trial was
"very positive," and senior director of product management for ground
and digital services Bjoern Becker said, "In near time, biometric boarding
… will be widely utilized across the U.S. and beyond."
CBP also is
working on biometric-based projects with JetBlue and Delta. JetBlue's, in
Boston, is similar to Lufthansa's, in which passengers are validated by facial
image when boarding. In July, Delta began allowing travelers who are enrolled
in Delta SkyMiles and in CLEAR to board using a fingerprint scan at Reagan
Washington National Airport. Delta also has enabled those passengers to
access the airport's Delta Sky Club via fingerprint scan.