Passengers traveling from Norway’s airports will soon be able to check in, drop their bags, pass through security and board the aircraft without any interpersonal contact, or the need to touch physical machines. This is a result of new social distancing processes and technology introduced by Avinor, which operates the country’s 44 state-owned airports, and supplied by Amadeus and subsidiary company ICM.
Avinor describes the new process as follows… A passenger checks in for a flight remotely and they receive a boarding pass barcode sent to their cell phone, which also acts as a coupon to print the passenger’s bag tag. Upon arrival at the terminal the passenger presents the barcode to a self-serve kiosk and the passenger’s baggage tag is automatically printed.
Next, the passenger simply attaches the tag and deposits the bag into the baggage system with no support from agents required. The company’s in-house team has re-engineered its self-service bag drop units with a new smart configuration of the existing barcode scanners and passenger dialog in order to make the process touchless. It notes that its airports already offer touchless boarding, with passengers able to present their boarding pass stored on their phone in order to authenticate and board the aircraft.
The airport group claims that rapid development of the new touchless check-in and baggage experience has been made possible due to its flexible technology approach. The airport operator was an early adopter of Amadeus’s cloud-based passenger handling platform, which means technical development and smooth data exchange with airline partners has been quick and simple to deliver. In fact, the new touchless experience was originally conceived in March and will be in operation for the summer season.