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Jetting off on holiday is the highlight of anyone’s year, yet the thrill of travelling to a beautiful new country can often be dampened by a miserable airport experience.
But believe it or not, the endless queuing to check in, frantic fumbling for passports and boarding cards and battling for a spot at the baggage claim may become a thing of the past.
Airport parking operator and retailer Airport Parking and Hotels (APH) has high hopes for the future of airports – which include biometric tickets, virtual assistants and fast molecular security scanners.
It has designed a model of what it believes an international airport would look like in 25 years, and it sure is impressive.
Tiresome check-in queues will be no more, as manned desks will be phased out completely to be replaced with online check-in and self-service desks.
And passengers can forget the faff and fumble of passports, boarding passes and other documents, once checked in, they will be issued with a biometric token that serves as passport, boarding pass and ID for the journey.
Each traveller will be scanned for unique biometric features – such as facial features, iris patterns and fingerprints – to verify their identities. The information will then be shared with immigration and security officials to make border control a smoother process.
What’s more is that this technology is already being trialled at Heathrow Airport, and is proving a faster and more reliable option to manual passport-checking.
The need for physical searches and frisks will be eliminated and replaced with powerful laser molecular body scanners, originally developed as medical devices. These scanners are effective from distances of 164ft and can detect contraband, chemicals and high-risk materials in passengers’ luggage or clothing.
Other types of scanners can read body language, alerting staff to any suspicious behaviour.
And no longer will fliers have to queue to drop their luggage off on departure, and battle elbows at the conveyor belt to retrieve it on the other side. Suitcases will be embedded with chips that will not only making them traceable via radio frequency, but send smartphone notifications when they’re ready for collection at the destination.
Drop-off points will be found in the airport car park, train station, restaurants and coffee shops – and perhaps even at passengers’ homes or hotels.
Beverley Barden, head of marketing at APH, said: “Airports are all too often a trying experience and one of the worst aspects of jetting off on holiday.
“What the future of airports project shows is that, in a few years, technological advances will enable airports to create a much more pleasant experience and work around the issues that they currently face.
“Through this research and the models we have created, we are able to predict what the airport experience could realistically be like in the near future, and it’s going to be very exciting to see it take shape.”
