A solution to evade long queues

For those who panic when faced with long queues at airports or juggle an armload of reading material while boarding a flight, there is help at hand.
Several technology applications are now being developed to ease travellers' woes ranging from location–based apps to kiosks that load favourite reading lists onto personal devices as well as wearables that help airlines identify and usher passengers swiftly onto a plane.

Geneva-based aviation technology provider SITA has launched a global beacon registry for airlines who want to communicate with passengers as they enter an airport. The beacons, coin-sized transmitters that can communicate with mobile devices within a radius of 100 feet, bypassing a telecom or Wi-Fi network, identify the location of the passenger and send regular updates.

This can range from information in change of boarding gates, estimated walk time to a gate and alerts about boarding. The airport shops can also send offers to their smartphones.

"We have launched the SITA Common-use Beacon Registry to give the industry a single point of contact," said Jim Peters, Chief Technology Officer, SITA, at the annual Air Transport IT Summit, held in Brussels last month.

For the technology to work, a passenger has to install the mobile app of an airline. Handset makers like Apple have integrated technology to accept beacon signals on iO7 based iPhones and iPads, while pilots have also begun with smartphones that use Google's Android.

SITA also builds kiosks which can load any amount of newspapers and magazines on an iPad or smartphone when a passenger places a boarding pass on the machine. US airports such as Miami, San Diego and Boston have installed automated passport control kiosks, where residents can swipe their passports.

The ATM sized kiosk takes a picture, fingerprints and hands out a receipt to the passenger.

"It has shortened queue times at airports from 2 hours to two minutes," said Ray Batt, director, government solutions for SITA.

(The writer was in Brussels at the invitation of SITA)