Lufthansa today announced the results of a pilot program undertaken in Los Angeles that allows passengers to board flights without the use of a passport or boarding pass at the gate.
In association with Customs and Border Control (CBP), Amadeus, and other partners Lufthansa set up self-boarding gates in LAX that allowed for biometric facial recognition technology to determine if a passenger is authorized to board a flight.
According to LH, when a passenger approaches the self boarding gate, a camera takes a photo of a passengers face and is immediately compared against a US CBP database. Within seconds, the information is relayed back to the gate and if everything is in good order, the gate opens and allows the passenger to board the aircraft.
With this technology in place, it would eliminate the need for a boarding pass or passport to be used at a gate.
In fact, Lufthansa was able to successfully board 350 passengers aboard an A380 in 20 minutes, marking a significant improvement over the normal time it takes to board the aircraft.
With the success of this pilot, Lufthansa will now consider expanding this concept to other USA gateways in an effort to modernize the passenger experience at the airport and at the same time enhance air travel security. No timeline has yet to be determined by LH as of this writing.
Exit controls are primarily to help the USA realize when someone overstays their visa. Every country I have visited has a system in place, other than the USA. To label this a prison is a blatant lie.
At present, once a alien enters the USA the USA has no way to know whether said person has exited. It really sounds pretty silly to me.
This technology is not intended to get rid of the need for a passport to travel. The US Government has no intention to allow even US citizens to freely travel out of and into the country by air without an issued passport. While the passport may end up being nothing more than an electronic registration of epassport-issuance and included biometrics with the USG, it will still be a passport, one just run on the basis of biometrics.
And note these checks are meant to become a de facto exit immigration control of sort.
In other words, the government isn’t doing this to save the money of its traveling citizens, save trees; or enable travel freedom; rather this is intended to further enable a stronger prison gate system to even leave the US.
Exit immigration controls are about restricting travel, not facilitating more travel.
And people should ask why the airlines agreed to do the USG’s bidding in this regard. It’s not like the airlines decided to do this then approach US DHS — rather it is was the USG going after the airlines to do this. So what was the bargain made by the airlines with the demanding, paranoid US Government?
It is clearly stated in the post that this “would eliminate the need for a boarding pass or passport to be used at a gate”. There is no mention in the article that it would eliminate the need to have a Passport for travelling.
I also don’t see how this is “exit immigration control of sort” other than what is in place already today. Passports are checked at various occasions, e.g. when entering the security checkpoint. And they are validated at the gate. And the Passenger List contains the names and details of each passenger on board. That means that now already it is clear who leaves the USA.
If you do not like their rules, don’t travel to the USA.
I am supporting this process if it indeed significantly reduces the time to board an aircraft and by doing so allows for a departure on time.
Never said it eliminates a need for passport. Just no passport at the gate which currently is checked when boarding.