With a growing demand for contactless services in airports, German manufacturer Materna IPS has developed a solution that allows passengers to operate self-bag-drop units (SBDs) with their smartphone.
By scanning a QR code on the kiosk screen with their own smartphone, passengers are redirected to a Materna IPS-hosted website replicating the display of the actual SBD on the smartphone. While the passenger process remains the same, travelers don’t need to physically interact with the kiosk. The company says its technology, Touchless.Connect, can be implemented on existing self-service devices.
Materna states that the software-based approach allows remote installation and easy integration into existing airport environments, and that additional hardware solutions are not required. Depending on the infrastructure, retrofitted SBDs usually rely on passenger interaction for manual bag tag scanning. Additionally, since the system is based on a web browser, there’s no need for passengers to download an app or activate Bluetooth.