Trio of airports show off innovation in Washington DC

The three airports have begun upgrading infrastructure to support contactless processing across the entire travel arena. Airport experts from Denver, Miami and Vancouver brought ideas together for an insightful discussion at Identity Week America highlighting their new technology pilots using biometric technology, private wireless infrastructure and security scanners.

To reduce queues and optimize the broader economic strategy, we heard from Denver International Airport Chief Operating Officer Dave LaPorte, who confirmed that they are using full biometric facial matching for U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) at both international arrival customs processing and at international departure gates to screen passengers departing from the United States.

Denver is also expanding facial verification to passengers’ biometric bag checks and integrating biometrics into secure internal employee portals.

Reducing line congestion directly improves passenger service and concession revenue. Miami International Airport has equally contributed to increased capacity and streamlined checkout operations through widespread passenger use of TSA contactless identification stripes. The introduction of touchless electronic gates, coupled with the latest computed tomography (CT) security scanners, is improving key performance indicators, according to James Snowdon, a spokesman for Canadian Tourism Initiatives.

The panel agreed that the tourism sector should strategically align critical metrics to reduce gate hassles, leverage analytics and increase revenues from security concessions.

YVR is a pioneer in self-service digital ID for boarding passengers, backed by an established government trust framework with the government as the credential issuer. While initial pilots focused on international travel, Canada is preparing to introduce self-ID cards to streamline the domestic travel market.

Snowdon warned that failure to form cross-sector partnerships creates costly operational problems, while seamless processing gives passengers more time after security checks in airport lounges.

Airports will not be able to scale efficient contactless operations without the capability of a wireless private network to process real-time data across large airport facilities. Maurice Jenkins, representing the Interior Ministry, said they have deployed one of the largest wireless networks to share data and eliminate inefficiencies that cost the industry millions of dollars each year.