Airport Business

MAY 2014

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TECH TRENDS May 2014 airportbusiness 25 capture data on an immigration lane that caused a bottleneck. But data shows that seven immi- gration officers are required to support every 16 kiosks, resulting in a 300 percent increase in pas- sengers at peak throughput versus if those same officers manned a traditional immigration booth." The kiosk's intuitive nature simplifies pro- cessing to save time. The kiosks also allow group travelers to process at the same time, so families traveling together can use one kiosk to scan their documents, answer declaration questions and confirm their flight information. "From a processing perspective, a single per- son can get through a kiosk in 20 to 40 seconds," says Flowers, noting a family can get through in less than three minutes. FINE-TUNE VISA WAIVER SCREENING Phase III offers the greatest potential benefits, according to Farrell. "The processing of foreign visitors takes a long time because visitors are required to pro- vide fingerprint and facial biometrics," he says. "Airports that leverage Phase III APC kiosks, rather than relying on the outdated capabilities offered through Phase I or II kiosks, will bene- fit from much higher passenger throughput at immigration. That will significantly reduce the wait times for all travelers and improve the overall travel experience." Orlando International Airport recently became one of the first airports to tackle Phase III screen- ing with SITA's kiosk technology. According to Farrell, it made sense to implement it here, because Orlando, Fla., is a popular destination for international travelers. "In an airport like Orlando, where a lot of their traffic is vacationers and fam- ilies, the last thing they want is for their first impression to be that you arrive at the airport and then have to wait in line for hours to get through immigration," he says. International passengers, particularly those from visa waiver countries, have a specific set of customs entry requirements. They must provide fingerprints and facial biometrics in addition to travel documents and customs declarations. "There are 39 visa waiver countries whose citizens are allowed to travel to the United States without a visa," says Farrell. "These individu- als have to provide fingerprint as well as face biometric data, and they take more time to pro- cess at the immigration line. Rolling out Phase III kiosks offloads the most time-consuming part of the immigration process to these kiosks." According to Farrell, once a passenger places his passport on SITA's Phase III reader, the entire upper half of the kiosk automatically raises or lowers using eye-finding technology so that the face camera, fingerprint reader and other devices are located at the most ergonomic position to ensure fast and high-quality biometric capture. Lighting surrounding the face camera adapts to current airport conditions to ensure the face is evenly lit as the system captures the image. The kiosks automatically submit all of this data to the U.S. government, where officials check it against various databases. "All of their information is vetted to match you to the mani- fest, make sure you're not on the no-fly list, and that there are no alias issues with your name, and that sort of thing," says GCR's Brodt, whose firm has also developed a Phase III kiosk. After this screening, a receipt prints for the traveler with a transaction code on it. The bar- code contains information as to whether or not this passenger is good to go through customs. "In the vast majority of cases, they are quickly confirmed by the CBP officer based on the infor- mation on that receipt," Brodt says. "The process takes around 50 seconds to complete which is far faster than before." BETTER MANAGED MANPOWER In a letter dated, April 9, board members of the Global Gateway Alliance tasked U.S. Customs and Border Protection Richard Gil Kerlikowske with doing more to address the problem. The letter praises the organization for its recent atten- tion to the issue, mentioning that APC kiosks were making a difference industry-wide. It also praised the Obama Administration Fiscal Year 2015 budget proposal to add 2,000 additional CBP agents at airports nationwide. However, the letter cautions the issue is far from resolved. "The advancements are a good start, but it is no means time for a victory lap," reads the letter. "We have a long way to go for our airports, airlines and most importantly millions of interna- tional passengers. In order to continue to improve the situation, the CBP and the aviation industry must take aggressive productive steps to expand their efforts." The Global Gateway Alliance letter calls on CBP to stop the practice of deploying officers to pre-clearance airports without significant domestic air carrier presence and passenger traf- fic to the United States. The letter points out that Abu Dhabi sends an average of 573 passengers a day to the United States and U.S. airlines do not serve the airport, yet CBP has opened a pre-clearance facility there. "Our view is that given the significant prob- lems we're facing with long customs lines here, the agency's staffing and resources need to be focused in the United States first," Sigmund says. The letter also demands that CBP coordinate better with airlines to deploy officers when and where they are most needed, expand technology applications in the customs hall, and adopt new management practices. "We believe manpower needs to be deployed in better ways," says Sigmund, explaining that airports currently assign CBP agents to specif- ic terminals, but the Global Gateway Alliance believes these agents would be more effective if they rotated between terminals based on need. "Agents also should not be doing administra- tive tasks; they should be able to use part-time employees to do that," he says. Though it's clear there is more work to be done, technology has already started CBP on the road to making bottlenecks in the customs hall a thing of the past. "Botlenecking at U.S. Immigraton has caused long passenger wait tmes— up to three to four hours at tmes—as well as costly fight delays and stress on the U.S. Customs and Border Protecton (CBP) staf and systems." SEAN FARRELL, HEAD OF PORTFOLIO MANAGEMENT, SITA airb_22-25_TechTrendsCustoms.indd 25 5/2/14 9:51 AM

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