So far, one-third of airlines have enabled mobile apps that verify the health or vaccination status of customers, while another 51 per cent intend to implement such technology by 2024. That is also the timeline for when 38 per cent of airports plan to enable end-to-end biometric airport journeys.
These are among the findings in the annual Air Transport IT Insights survey undertaken by aviation IT company SITA. Survey results, SITA said, came from airlines that collectively represented 30 per cent of global air traffic in 2019 as well from 161 airports that collectively represented 30 per cent of global passenger traffic that year.
The survey found that for 2021, some 48 per cent of airlines had planned to increase IT spending compared to 2020, while 44 per cent of carriers planned to spend less. The trend line is more bullish this year, with 61 per cent of carriers expecting to increase their IT spend, compared with 16 per cent that expect to spend less.
The top IT investment priority for carriers is cybersecurity, with cloud services and mobile applications for passenger services trailing closely behind.
Among those mobile app investments for many airlines will be health verification apps, which are also known as health passports or vaccine passports.
IATA has repeatedly identified automated health verification as essential to speeding up check-in processing times for international air travel during the COVID-19 pandemic, as countries have implemented a complicated milieu of entry and exit requirements. The SITA survey found that 33 per cent of airlines now offer health-certificate verification via mobile app.
In addition, four per cent of carriers offer health-certificate verification via kiosk. By 2024, some 84 per cent of airlines expect to offer a vaccine passport app, while 49 per cent expect to be verifying health documents via kiosk.
An increasing number of airlines are also turning to biometrics. Twenty per cent of carriers said that they have already begun utilising biometric identity confirmation technology for ticketless self-boarding, up from just five per cent in 2020. By 2024, 50 per cent of airlines expect to have deployed such solutions, according to the SITA survey.
On the airport side, the survey found that 48 per cent of facilities had planned to increase IT spending last year, compared to 33 per cent that expected a decrease. This year, 55 per cent of airports plan to increase their IT investment, compared to 19 per cent that anticipate reducing it.
As with airlines, the top IT investment priority for airports is cybersecurity. Cloud services and self-service processes were the second and third priorities.
From door to gate, airports are ramping up in investments in biometrics. Thirty-two per cent said they have implemented automated border gates at departure using biometrics, while 30 per cent said they have implemented automated arrival gates.
By 2024, 59 per cent of airports expect to have biometrically-enabled international departure, and 51 per cent expect to have biometrically-enabled international arrival.
Meanwhile, 24 per cent of airports say they now house biometrically-enabled, ticketless, self-boarding gates, with 62 per cent of airports expecting to implement the technology by 2024.
Just three per cent of airports said they have enabled an end-to-end biometric journey, in which passengers can pass from check-in, through security and onto their plane without displaying a ticket or an ID.
However, 38 per cent expect to implement biometrics at all touch points by 2024, according to the SITA survey.
Source: Travel Weekly