Over the next month, Delta Air Lines, in partnership with U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL), Minneapolis−Saint Paul International Airport (MSP) and Salt Lake City International Airport (SLC) will install optional facial recognition boarding at ATL Concourse E, MSP and SLC – expanding the technology to 49 new gates and all international flights.
This means that customers flying direct to an international destination on Delta and its partners can use facial recognition technology to board at these airports. And, if customers do not want to participate, they just let a Delta gate agent know and board as they always have, using their boarding pass and passport.
“We are already seeing improvements in satisfaction scores from customers moving through the airport in Atlanta. The expansion of facial recognition at boarding enables more customers to take advantage of this seamless, time-saving process – an important step as we implement facial recognition in our hubs across the country and define the experience for the industry,” said Gil West, Delta’s COO. “At Delta, we have the best people in aviation, and technology like this frees them up to spend more time helping our customers.”
The expansion to ATL E rounds out the curb-to-gate biometric experience for international travelers in Atlanta. Based on recent, third-party customer insight research at ATL Concourse F:
70 percent found the curb-to-gate facial recognition experience appealing after moving through it at ATL F
72 percent prefer facial recognition to standard boarding
93 percent of customers had no issue using the technology at boarding
In addition, less than two percent of customers opt out of this process and CBP has a match rate of more than 97 percent. At boarding, this technology can save an average of nine minutes when boarding a widebody aircraft, or two seconds per customer when compared with traditional boarding.
“With facial recognition technology, we are simply taking a picture and matching it against passport photos, replacing the manual comparison process,” said John Wagner, Deputy Executive Assistant Commissioner, Office of Field Operations, CBP. «Built on years of testing and partnership with Delta, expansion will bring a more efficient travel experience to more passengers, while meeting the federal requirements for international passenger verification that have been in place since 1996”…
