Aussies ‘want better facial recognition’ at airports to speed up travel

A survey of Australian travellers has revealed the one key thing the overwhelming majority of people want at airports.

Australians want better facial recognition at airports to speed up the customs process, according to Luxury Escapes. Picture: NCA NewsWire/David Crosling

Australians want better facial recognition at airports to speed up the customs process.

That is according to new data from Luxury Escapes, which found almost three-quarters (72 per cent) of the 4000 Aussie travellers it surveyed wanted to see more of the biometric technology at airports.

“We’ve seen this kind of technology trialled in Australia, and several major airports in the US, but whether this technology will roll out across all international markets remains to be seen,” Luxury Escapes CEO and co-founder Adam Schwab told news.com.au.

“Facial recognition technology is just one of many ways Australian travellers, and the travel industry, continue to look for ways to make travel safer, more efficient and less stressful for all.”

He said another example in the company’s survey findings was that 77 per cent of Australians intend to book their travel plans well in advance this year.

Australians want more facial recognition technology at airports, according to Luxury Escapes. Picture: CFOTO/Future Publishing via Getty Images

The future of airports

Emirates president Sir Tim Clark is a big supporter of biometric technologies in airports and believes, in the future, travellers will be able to walk straight through to their gate without stopping.

While visiting Australia from Dubai in January, news.com.au asked Sir Tim, who has been in the industry since 1972, what the future would look like.

“I expect every airport to be designed completely biometrically driven,” he said.

The idea is that facial recognition, which is already being used at airports, and other technologies will be more heavily relied on to identify and screen passengers all the way through the airport.

Sir Tim Clark speaks at a roundtable discussion in Melbourne while visiting Australia. Picture: Emirates

“Right the way through to the boarding gate there will be no paper, there will be no central search – bags, handbags, everything out etc – because the machines themselves will look at what you’re carrying and they’ll know you, because AI will store you,” Sir Tim said.

“You don’t regularly travel with half a tonne of cocaine in your handbag and you don’t have this and you don’t have that, so in the end the ability to move through an airport kerbside to boarding the plane will be so compressed.

“The beauty about it is – and what pays for it is – that the longer dwell time you have in the airport, because you’ve dropped check-in queues and you’ve dropped central searches, you empty your pockets at the fast food and merchandising operations in the airports where they really make their money.”

Sir Tim predicts you won’t see this scene at an airport in the future. Picture: NCA NewsWire/David Crosling

Sir Tim said he wants to see the need to check in scrapped and travellers walking through a security frame without even knowing it.

When it comes to boarding the plane, he predicts the technology will be able to scan your face and only let a passenger through if it is their time to board.

While it sounds quite futuristic, Sir Tim insists it is very possible and not too far away.

“I know technology will get us there … probably in the next three to five years we should be at the stage where computing power allows us to do all this kind of stuff without any problem at all,” he said.