Dubai Airport's Terminal 3 will offer passport-free travel later this year as biometrics and facial recognition become increasingly common in global travel.
Emirates airline CEO Adel Ahmed Al Redha said the airline will be able to facilitate passenger check-in through their own identification around November-December.
As a result, all passengers would not have to take out their passports.
A new system will be in place at Terminal 3 of Dubai Airport in November that will allow passengers to clear all procedures with their biometrics, according to Major General Obaid Muhair bin Suroor, Deputy Director General of the General Directorate of Residency and Foreigners Affairs (GDRFA).
We will implement it in November. We are working on smart passage so that everything is done electronically. We are going to replace electronic gates with smart gates for easy and seamless travel,” he said during the first day of the Global Conference for Shaping Future Policies of Ports on Tuesday.
For the past few years, Dubai Airports has been working on the project, utilizing the latest biometric technology to ensure a seamless travel experience for passengers.
It was announced during the first day of the Global Conference for Shaping Future Policies of Ports that travellers' faces and fingerprints would become their passports, making travel smoother, seamless, and faster at airports.
In addition, they called for sharing of data between airports to speed up passenger flow.
On Tuesday, Emirates Airline and Group chairman and chief executive Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum opened the conference in Dubai's Madinat Jumeirah.
According to Adel Ahmed Al Redha, customers want less interaction, so passengers' information needs to be integrated at all touch points.
It will be easier and faster for passengers to exit or enter if countries share data rather than relying on passengers. There is a need to use facial recognition so the passenger himself becomes the identity at every touch point. If I am exiting Dubai, some airports ask me to fill in the information again. Technology is available but we are not collaborating. There should be a system to communicate with each other,” said Al Redha, during the conference.
In order to enhance processes, artificial intelligence (AI) will play a key role in collecting data and utilizing it.
For a smooth flow of travelers, Miguel Leitmann, co-founder and group CEO at Vision-Box, said biometrics are the new normal. “Free flow is becoming more common, secure and accepted by governments, businesses and travellers,” said Leitmann.
Using technology at ports and airports will eliminate the human factor and create new jobs, but in different roles, such as monitoring and analyzing other processes.
According to him, in the future there will be a common database among different countries, but for now it is a difficult task. “If governments exchange data, then international passengers can use their own biometrics to move from one country to another.”
According to Al Redha, technology is the solution to the challenges facing the aviation sector.
Due to limited airport infrastructure, the number of check-in counters will not increase. The only way to address this issue is to walk through seamless operations. Seamless operations come with reliable technology. But we are not there yet. 'We should be relying on 90 percent automation and 10 percent human interaction in the future,' he said, adding that the airline has moved from 5-10 percent of passengers directly making reservations to more than 50 percent.